Iconic Guitars has given the Stratocaster a stunning modern reimagining for fusion guitarist Josh De La Victoria, and it’s got fans and players in a hot mess.
Granted, electric guitar purists will find a multi-scale, seven-string S-stype complete with an EverTune bridge a bit sacrilegious, but considering the Strat's recipe has hardly changed in its 70+ years, there will be others out there who welcome the change.
Other choice improvements see a truss rod adjustment wheel at the heel of the neck, and an HSS setup that gives the bridge a little more body than the OG design.
“Bet you haven’t seen this before,” De La Victoria writes on Instagram alongside a picture of him holding the guitar like a proud father. “I had a chat with Kevin [Proctor, Iconic President] a few months back about a crazy new build idea, and it’s here.
“For the past year, I’ve been thinking about how an S-type guitar could work with multi-scale, and I gotta say it looks and plays incredible. The mix of vintage and modern has always been something that I really connect with and look for. This is probably the most extreme version of that.”
The Iconic Solana 7, the seven-string version of its S-type design, was used as a starting point, but the whole center of the body and neck was ultimately redesigned to fit the multi-scale and EverTune.
The bridge humbucker is also a new creation, with Iconic custom-building it to match its pre-existing single coil models.
“Really proud of this dude and this guitar,” Proctor adds in his own Instagram post. “Thanks to my dear friend Josh for the idea for this guitar and for trusting our team to bring this incredible Solana 7 multi-scale to life.”
Speaking in a YouTube video dedicated to the guitar project, Victoria says he had been drawn to the idea of “a guitar no one makes that I wish they would,” before he floated the “stupid idea” to Kevin Proctor around the time of NAMM 2025.
Proctor set to work with prototyping straight away, with the first skeleton made just weeks later. The fine-tuning process has naturally taken a lot longer, with De La Victoria's love of vintage and modern blends embodied in a familiar-looking, feeling guitar that is also distinctly modern.
Naturally, fans and players are gushing over the new build. Heck, even Misha Mansoor has weighed in, commenting, "Wow. Lemme get dat."
Fender has made a one-off seven-string Strat for Chris Garza, but this is on another level.
It continues Josh’s long-standing relationship with Iconic Guitars. The firm recruited former Fender Master Builder John Cruz last year as the fast-rising boutique guitar maker continues its rise.
Now, Iconic just needs to make a similarly spec'd T-type, and its curtains for this writer's bank balance...
