The story we’re told of this uniquely special Squier “backed by Fender” Paranormal Cyclone is that it’s a pre-production unit that was sold during an internal Fender Hollywood employee sale around Q1. As such, you’ll notice some unique differences that make this an excellent consideration for collectors.

While we have no written confirmation, we believe the indicators on this guitar align well with it being a pre-production or sample unit.

The most immediate differences? The color is a deeper blue than the production model — more of a turquoise blue that’s deeper than daphne blue. The bridge assembly, tuning machines, pickups, and fretboard choices appear to be in-line with what you’d find on the lower-priced Affinity series (notice that the truss-rod channel also has no black plastic channel). If we had to guess: maybe Fender was figuring out which level in the line these guitars would ultimately place in.

The pickguard has a slightly different shape than the production model with a sharper point on the lower horn. As with these Fender pastels, please note the color in person can vary in appearance. We’ve our best to show what we believe is a fairly accurate representation, but it can vary on different screens. We’ve also done our best to accurately describe the guitar so please also make note of the photos.

Under the hood, you’ll find what appear to be the same pots used in the production model, albeit a mild amount splicing in the cabling. Looks like there was some experimentation.

You’ll also notice the hand-written neck pocket and neck heel markings MSTC and MSC, which are not the usually seen stamps on the production model.

The serial number is also interesting in that it seems to pre-date the serial numbers of the official product shots on the Fender website.

As for quality, we think it’s fair to consider the guitar in excellent condition. There are all-around light scratches and swirlies that don’t show up well in photos. No cracks. Plastic is still on the pick guard. More notable are some scratches between the volume and tone pots, a very slight scrape on the bass side of the neck around the first fret, and slightly deeper finish scuff above the area of the neck pickup no bigger than a dime.

We’ve given it a full setup to bring it within just about factory spec. Right around 10 thousands of an inch relief at the 9th fret with just bit over 4/64” action at the twelve fret with the pickups set to 5/64” bass and 4/64” height when depressing the last fret. There is a very slight amount of “sitar” with big bends around some of higher frets on the e string, but we don’t find notes completely fretting out. We’ve also lubricated all string contact points and set the bridge in a floating condition to allow for intervals. Pull back on the G and you’ll get a nice A#! It stays in tune relatively well — we hope you’ll be delighted! (When resting flat, you will notice the cavity for the tremolo bar is slightly visible on the bass side) Intonation was was set to be pretty darn close, but that will also depend on your playing style. We did not file the the nut slots further as we found them comfortable. The guitar is strung and setup for Ernie Ball Super Slinky 9-42s.

We checked the neck for overall straightness without tension and found the fretboard at best can be adjusted slightly shy of perfectly flat - remember, this is a Squier after all. To give you the most granular detail: appears to be an ever-so slight s curve wherein after around the 14th fret or so you’ll see a slight slope and some relief between the 3-9 frets. We’re talking like ~0.003” of variation at the most notable points. We did not notice any major twist in the neck.

As for the frets, there’s nary sign of wear — these are minty. We cleaned and oiled the fretboard after polishing all the frets to a mirror finish with a Dremel — way over the top to be frank, but we love glassy smooth frets. The fretwork is very good considering the “price point” of the guitar — you may want to round over the slight sharpness of the edges.

We checked all electronics to be in working order with no major buzzing or scratchiness.

The pickups measure as follows:
Neck: 4.36kohm
Middle: 4.4kohm
Bridge: 4.34kohm
Neck and Middle: 2.21kohm
Bridge and Middle: 2.2kohm
Bridge and Neck: 2.19kohm

Essentially, they all appear to be “the same” pickup. Nothing extraordinary, what you’d find on an Affinity. One pole piece on the middle pickup has slightly tarnish.

Finally, the guitar was cleaned, polished and waxed with Music Nomad Guitar Detailer and ONE before being stored in a temperature and humidity regulated environment.

The guitar will ship boxed and secured inside a Gator Transit Series Gig Bag, which features a neck support. The guitar did not arrive with a whammy bar — the bar included is a Squier whammy bar that fits properly.