Rock Stars and MoPars Descend on Fender HQ
There’s nothing like sun, cars and guitars, and Fender’s very own Scottsdale, Ariz., front yard roared with the sound of hemi engines and rang with the sound of guitars on Thursday morning, March 23.
More than 50 souped-up, tricked-out MoPar® cars descended on Fender headquarters that morning for the start of the 300-mile Scottsdale-to-Las-Vegas “MoPars at the Strip” cruise. “MoPar®” is the auto parts and service arm of the DaimlerChrysler (formerly Chrysler®) Corp.’s U.S. brands, but car enthusiasts use the term broadly to describe any Chrysler®, Dodge® or Plymouth car or truck.
Participants included avid MoPar® fans Al Jardine of the Beach Boys and guitar slinger Kenny Wayne Shepherd, who pulled up in his “Xtreme” Lee ’69 Dodge® Charger that looked straight out of The Dukes of Hazzard. The cruise culminates with a March 26 performance by Jardine’s Endless Summer Band at the “Mad About MoPars” car show and festival at the Cannery Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
The event was the work of Fender and Robert Wolf, editor and publisher of Mopar Collectors Guide, a popular independent magazine by and for MoPar® enthusiasts. Fender presented Wolf with a custom sleek black MoPar® Stratocaster® guitar to be given to a lucky winner at Sunday’s car show.
Jardine brought an exciting air of real Fender history to the event, as it was the Beach Boys who, by so visibly using Fender instruments and amps, gave a huge boost to the fledgling southern California company back in the early ’60s . At Thursday’s event, Jardine graciously loaned his weathered white ’62 Stratocaster to Fender so that it could be “cloned” by Fender Custom Shop craftsmen over the next year.
“This guitar is the kind that we played at all those shows and on all those records,” Jardine said. “Our road instruments were always our recording instruments, as well, in those days. We played on our own songs, and this is a very important part of that history. Thank you to Fender for providing us with these instruments in the very beginning. Otherwise, we would’ve been playing gut-string guitars and stand-up bass, which we did play on our first album, actually, before we even understood what a Fender guitar was, in 1961.”
Jardine handed the guitar to Fender Senior Vice President of Market Development Ritchie Fliegler, whose own MoPar®, a ’71 Dodge® Challenger 440 Six-Pack RT, sat nearby. Fliegler thanked everyone for coming and thanked Jardine for the Beach Boys’ music and for their major role in Fender history.
The Rest of the story:
http://www.fender.com/news/index.php?display_article=100
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