Fender Hot Rod Deluxe

The Fender Hot Rod Deluxe was first introduced by Fender in 1997 as part of the “Hot Rod” series of amplifiers. The amplifier has been extremely popular and has remained in production since it’s initial release. The Hot Rod Deluxe was originally produced in the US at Fender’s Corona, CA facility until 2000. During this period the amp had the “F.A.T” moniker which stood for *F*ender *A*merican *T*ube. However when production was moved to Fender’s Baja-Ensenada, Mexico factory this label was dropped from the amp.

The Hot Rod Deluxe uses two 6L6 tubes in the power section and three 12AX7s in the pre-amp section to produce 40 watts of output. The extra 12AX7 is used for the phase inverter of the power section of the amp. The rectifier circuits are solid state. The amp is stocked with one 12" Special Design Eminence 8 ohm, 50 watt speaker in a black textured vinyl and silver grille cloth cabinet.

The Hot Rod Deluxe has three selectable channels: “Normal”, “Drive” and “More Drive”. The “Drive” and “More Drive” channels are controlled with a gain and master knob and a “bright” switch has been added to the “normal” channel to provide greater treble in the tone. Other features include spring reverb where both the driver and recovery circuits are solid state, EQ controls, footswitch and an external jack for powering speaker cabinets.