#Tokai springy sound 50 series

The 50s Fender catalogues advertised the Strat’s “contoured” shape fitting the players body snugly and providing comfort. Finally, however, Fender entered into an agreement with Tokai to manufacture Fender guitars at their Japanese factories in the late 1990s. I believe the two companies were exploring a partnership of some kind in the 1980s which did not materialize and might have cost Tokai some financial setbacks. A communication from Tokai to Leo Fender in 1982 expressed the budding company's respect for the iconic design of the original Strat and explained that Tokai had no intentions of interfering with CBS's business in the US. These guitars were becoming an actual threat to Fender’s own sales at the time. And the results were clearly appreciated by players, even as famous as Stevie Ray Vaugn who has been pictured in a few places with a Tokai Strat.

#Tokai springy sound 50 series

A rough translation from a catalogue tells us that Tokai “formed a project team consisting of about 10 people including musicians and veteran craftsmen (and) as a result of thorough research and tireless efforts, we have completed a series in which the performance has been upgraded as well as completed restoration of the original.” They dismantled and reverse engineered actual vintage Strats in their efforts to achieve “ thoroughness and transcendence”. In fact, not only did Tokai claim to reincarnate the iconic Strat, but they were audacious enough to suggest that they “improved it”.

The catalogue explains how the ‘54 Strat was the ideal guitar according to musicians and hence Tokai attempted to reincarnate it. They were chasing the “springy sound” of the vintage Strat that was “sharp, crisp, yet warm”. Tokai’s 1978 catalogue mentions this fact explicitly several times, even calling it, “ the returned 54 Strat”. In the late 1970s, Tokai launched the Springy Sound model that was based on the 1954 Strat.