Frankenstrat

The Frankenstrat, also known as "Frankie" or officially "Frankenstein", is a guitar created by Eddie Van Halen. Its name is a portmanteau of Frankenstein, the fictional doctor who created a monster by combining body parts of the recently deceased, and the Stratocaster, a model of electric guitar made by Fender.

The Frankenstrat was Van Halen's attempt to combine the sound of a classic Gibson guitar with the physical attributes and tremolo bar functionality of a Fender Stratocaster. An early version of a superstrat, the guitar was made from a Northern Ash Stratocaster body, with pickup routing which Van Halen modified to fit a Gibson PAF humbucking pickup in the bridge position. The guitar has a maple neck and fretboard, chrome hardware and was painted with a white over black design. This gave the appearance of a white guitar with black stripes. Later, red was painted over the original black and white. This now gave the appearance of a red guitar but was, in fact, just a third color sprayed over the original design. It has a standard six-string setup and a Floyd Rose tremolo.