The amazing Smuggler Telecaster

Nah, it's not mine.

Sometime it puzzles me how people keep their jobs. Is the person that came up with this wacko Telecaster still a Fender employee?
Fender have come up with some hideous looking instruments over the years (and still do) like the.. The Performer 1985/6 that missed the boat in the CBS sale. I'd say this is 'very now' with its Floyd wobbly stick and a 24 fret fingerboard. Can I hear a Performer reissue in the near future? Remember you read it here on Electric Guitars and Racing Cars first.

Mystic Seafoam as seen on the new American Pro Jazzmaster.

Another was the Katana in '85, Fender's take on the Flying V also drowning in the CBS disaster of '86.

I can only imagine the other half.

Or the one pickup Swinger in 1969, a Mustangy thing where they were testing the new fangled CNC machines. Collectors would even turn their noses up at the Swinger.

Ooops!!

However, the Smuggler Telecaster must take the cake. They say it was detector dog proof but not X-ray proof however none have been known to have been intercepted at mail centres. You could probably stash your crumpled up Picasso you souvenired in the cavities and get away with it.
So did Fender include a non-see-through pickguard? Doubt it. This is definatly a Fender novelty but unlike those above mentioned failures I don't think we should be taking the Smuggler Tele too seriously. Will it be a collectable in a few years? Probably but only determined by what gets concealed in it. For a Fender novelty I much prefer the bottle opener you nail to the top of your bar-room special Telecaster.

Please can I have my job back now?