Fender Colours and The Fiesta Red Thing

[roger bayliss]

Dunno if some have you have read this before but it's a good explanation

http://home.provide.net/~cfh/fenderc.html

[Bill Bowley]

Roger,

Probably one of the best ref sites on the subject IMHO! First read it years ago.

On the subject of Fiesta Red, only last night I was reading through Duchossoir's excellent Strat book for about the thousandth time, and in particular Part II where the origin of Fiesta Red gets a mention.
He says:
'..Fender was beginning to put together its own palette of 'standardised custom' finishes. GEORGE FULLERTON vividly recalls:'One day, I went down to a local paint store and I started to explain to the man what I had in mind. I had him mix some paint there on the spot and what we finally came up with was a red colour.That was what got the colour thing started and that particular red became Fiesta Red. In England, that was the only colour they bought for a long time. They weren't ordering anything else. but that Fiesta Red'!" Asked about a date, George goes on to specify: "I would say probably late 1957/early 1958. The custom colours came out about that time because I had the colour red put over one of the early manufactured Jazzmasters. I still have the instrument as a matter of fact!".

He goes on to say: 'GEORGE FULLERTON is keed to add:" No-one was making coloured instruments back then, so it was an opportunity for us to do something different and it turned out pretty nice."



Regards

[steelystrings]

Hi
Thanks for reproducing that article, long but very interesting.

Steve.