All I can say is that I am confident the neck on mine is US-made. As for the necks, I've read various things about US-made necks, but who knows how consistent they were for the entire production. I gutted the Greasebucket circuit and wired a conventional HSS circuit with a 500k linear taper volume pot, and for me it's much better that way.Īs for MIM vs MIA components, I have read that many of the hardware items were apparently MIM, such as the trem, pots, tuners, etc. And second, to my ears the circuit was a tone sucker-I was continuously struggling to find treble and clarity, and it always sounded muddier than I wanted. First, because Fender paired the 16k Atomic Humbucker to a 250k volume pot, which IMO was a ridiculous choice. I personally disliked it for two reasons. Eventually I replaced them with US-spaced Callahams, and those are what are currently on the guitar. One thing I didn't like about my guitar was the bridge has an American spacing-2 1/8"-but the stock saddles were the narrower, import spacing of 2 1/16", which was aggravating. Earlier Highway Ones had the regular size headstock, and I think the SSS Highway Ones continued with small headstocks probably through 2006 or so. It has the big headstock, and I think that was the first model year for the big headstock among that line. My Highway One Strat is an HSS, neck date is 2004, model year is 2005.