Competition Blue with pale blue 'Racing' stripes.

1973 Fender Competition Mustang.

Offset asymmetrical double cutaway, contoured solid body. This 12 1/4 inch wide guitar weighs just 6.80 lbs. and has a nut width of just under 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 24 inches. Solid alder body, one-piece maple neck with a nice medium profile and 22 original medium frets with pearloid dot position markers and black dot side markers. Fender headstock logo with "Fender" in black with gold trim, followed by "Mustang" in black, and "Pat. 2,741,146   2,960,900   3,241,418 / 3,143,028   3,290,980  Des. 204,098" in black below. Single 'butterfly' string tree with plastic spacer. Individual Fender "F" style tuning gears with octagonal white plastic buttons. Four-bolt Fender "F" neck plate with serial number "393500" stamped between the top two screws. Two black bakelite slant mounted single-coil pickups with gray bottoms ("192873 stamped in black) and outputs of 5.56k and 5.58k. Three-layer plastic (pearloid/black/white) pickguard with 12 screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus two three-way pickup selector switches. Black plastic control knobs with seven sides and white line markers. Fender Mustang Bridge with six adjustable saddles. Fender 'Dynamic Vibrato' tailpiece. The neck is stamped "16 MAR 73B", the potentiometers are stamped "137 7310" (CTS March 1973). Competition Blue is very similar to Lake Placid Blue. The body of the guitar has uniformly faded to a very attractive hunter green and the three 'racing stripes' have also faded to a very nice light green color. There is a very small amount of wear to the first five frets. Otherwise this super guitar is in exceptionally fine (9.00) condition with just a few small surface marks on the body and is complete with the original tremolo arm and a tan leather guitar strap. Housed in its original Fender gray hardshell case with black imitation leather ends and orange plush lining (8.75).

The Fender Mustang was introduced in August 1964 before the sale of Fender Electric Instruments to CBS. The idea was to create a mid-line model between the student grade DuoSonic, and the professional Telecaster. The Mustang was a very popular model, and was made until 1981. Originally designed with a 22.5" inch scale guitar, the Mustang is almost always found with a 24 inch scale. Early models had a slab alder body, but it was given the patented Fender contour body in early 1969.

The Mustang had two pickups and (usually) a 24" short scale length. Though the scale length is longer than the original Duosonics/Musicmasters (which had 22.5" scales), the Mustang is still considered a "student model". Hence their value is low compared to other models. Originally the Mustang was introduced to replace the entire DuoSonic/MusicMaster line, becoming the new Fender student model. But The introduction of the Mustang moved the DuoSonic/MusicMaster lines to a second generation, 24" scale length. Due to extreme backorders, all student-line Fenders stayed intact to 1969 when demand dropped and the DuoSonic was discontinued.