Routed body.
I just had my CV fifties sunburst strat's pickguard off yesterday to put on a new five way Fender switch with the bridge tone mod - switch was shot and did the bridge tone mod because I want all my strats that way. Inside the body was routed out for a neck and bridge humbucker even though it is a sss guitar; it was totally painted well with shielding paint as well in the routs.
Therefore, I CV fifties strat could easily be turned into an awesome, awesome super strat with two real nice aftermarket humbuckers above and below the stock single coil. I can imagine some awesome possibilities both tonally and visualy. I could turn that CV into one outrageous hot rodded super strat that would be as fun to play as it would be to look at. Transforming a real nice guitar into a spectacular guitar is a source of pride and joy, needless to say, and adds to the fun of playing and appreciability factor - in addition to the cooeficient of cool.
Moding out a guitar of your choice aside, a Blacktop tele is one awesome guitar. I have played two of them thru a variety of amps and they both sounded highly impresive, no coil tapping, but totally impressive; with real good, hot pickups. I own the black strat Blacktop with a maple fretboard and it is a very well made MIM guitar with all the good things going for it, at a very amazing price. Here they still sell for 448.
I think there is something to be said about a guitar that was designed by experienced engineers and built of quality selected parts in order to produce a particularly attractive model. Although it is fun to mod guitars and make them your own, I usually only do so after lots and lots of thought, so that I come up with a product that is really personally satisfying and a significant improvement over the stock item. Right now I would like to pick up a used MIM strat and mod it to my liking, but they are hard to find around here.
I'd say of the above choices that, I, personally only, would be very happy with the stock Fender Blacktop Telecaster. It comes with a lifetime warranty and is an excellent design, produced of high quality components. The two that are at the shop by me have super beautiful quater sawn necks that are a joy to look at. I have been looking closely at the necks on prospective guitars lately and I like a nice straight grained neck, preferably with some beautiful flame or birdseye or evidence of quarter sawing in it. The micro blockiness of the grain in the neck of my CV fifties sunburst with the tinted neck, and the blockiness coveering the headstock, is a thing of beauty. I totally like the white neck on my Lake Placid
Blue CV fifties strat and the neck is very straight grained, but it does not have the tint or high level of blockiness in the grain pattern. The contrast between the two is beautiful and the Texas Special CS pickups on the LPB one, along with the brushed nickel locking tuners contribute to its uniquely beautiful vibe and presence, and it plays and sounds better than it looks. I'm lucky to have some spectacular strats, but I have put a lot of work and some money into almost all of them. The more personalized I make them, the more I seem to appreciate them, and the better they seem to sound. It might be psychology and the physical taking on of ownership of something you, to some degree, crafted. It then may become a pool into which your creative art is dipped into and reflected from - even drinking of its tasty essence. I mean hey, it is a romantic passtime, making music, to many isn't it? Then again a brand new guitar, crafted by artists, that rings like the bells of heaven and roars like the wilds of the Savanah or a roaring Freight Train is a thing of immesurable beauty and gratification. It's a quest of unknown proportions without a detailed parts list; kind of like a lost pirate's map written in an unknown language and filled with long ago renamed places. It's there, right there in front of us, but yet so hard to find.
Good luck. I don't think you can go too wrong with the Blacktop or the Squier thinline tele and modifying it - they are both two of the guitars that I have played that have definitely struck a chord in my heart and I'm lucky enough to own one of them today. I can remember fondly the days when my father would present me with gifts like that; gifts that had that special value added quality that words can't describe and money can't buy.
