Fender Stratocaster
electric guitar model
The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of double-cutaway electric guitar designed between 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously manufactured the Stratocaster since 1954.
The guitar's distinctive body shape was revolutionary when introduced in the mid-1950s. The heavily contoured back was designed for better comfort while playing. The elongated top horn changes the balance when played standing up with a strap compared to the preceding model, the Fender Telecaster. While the original release of the Stratocaster included a vibrato system, Stratocasters without it ("hardtails") were added to the portfolio in March 1955. The modular nature of the guitar, with its easily removable components, enabled players and luthiers to perform numerous modifications to their own guitars, changing out pickups or necks to fit the needs of the player. All of these design elements were popularized and later became industry standards due to the success of the Stratocaster.
Many prominent rock musicians have been associated with the Stratocaster for use in studio recording and live performances, most notably Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour, Eric Clapton, Buddy Holly, George Harrison, Mark Knopfler, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Johnson, John Frusciante, Kevin Parker, Yngwie Malmsteen and Jeff Beck.
The Fender Stratocaster is one of the most iconic electric guitar models of all time, and along with the Gibson Les Paul, Gibson SG, and Fender Telecaster, it is one of the most-often emulated electric guitar shapes, It is a patented design, and "Stratocaster" and "Strat" are Fender trademarks.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q208173. The Library of Congress control number is sh93007715. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 1954 and 1955.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fender Stratocaster” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.