Leaderboard

I like it... I'll have a little dabble... my song repertoire is understandably a bit thin at the moment!

and even those were a huge step forward in their day. There was one year when the Sidewinder markedly outsold the Squier in the UK - and Squier seriously upped their game after that. The next big leap was when Yamaha put out the Pacifica 112 with a solid wood body. Remember the ad campaign which showed the butt end of a Yamaha and a competitor (impliedly a Squier) with the paint scraped off showing the 'brand x' was ply, and the Yammy solid? Caption - "Just ask them if it's available in a natural finish" or similar... IMO, that's when Budget brands really started to step up their game. The next big leap was when they started to aspire to produce budget instruments for the long term player, even performer - not just beginners. I see Vintage (started off as a premium version of an Encore) are now styled as "quality guitars for the working musician", and really expanding their endorsee-user base. That sort of rethinking the "budget" concept - along with HB disrupting the model to provide so much more for a lower cost to the end consumer - is really light years away from the days of the Sidewinder. (I'd love to give one of those a go now, see if they're as playable as I remember!)