The lower priced Fender guitars were made in America and could not compete with the Japanese made Fender copies lower prices. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Fender was facing competition from lower priced Japanese made guitars. Until the introduction of the Fender Squier series, Fender had never produced lower priced guitars based on their main Stratocaster and Telecaster designs and had always used different model designs for their lower priced guitars. Before the Fender Squier series were introduced in 1982, Fender were making lower priced guitars such as the Fender Lead series at their Fullerton California plant. It produces models mostly derived from the Fender line of products but at lower cost, and are marketed similarly in providing high quality instruments at affordable prices for novice players.įender, under the ownership of CBS, acquired the Squier brand name in the mid to late 1960s when it bought a USA based string making firm, but it lay dormant for many years. Squier is a second-line brand of the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.