Nuno Bettencourt is a Portuguese-American guitarist best known for his advanced guitar work with rock band Extreme.
Since the 1980s he has been using custom-made Washburn superstrat-style guitars, and he has a long running signature series ranging from £200 guitars to £2,000 guitars.
Here the most expensive model in the series, the N4 Vintage, will be covered.
The N4 Vintage is an aged version of the USA-made N4 guitar, based on Bettencourt’s actual stage guitar. It has a solid alder body and is heavily aged. It features Washburn’s famous Stephen’s Extended Cutaway and the Bill Lawrence L500 bridge pickup.
The bridge is an Original Floyd Rose unit and it bears a graphic on the bottom right-hand side of the body with the model name in shiny silver lettering.
The Stephen’s Extended Cutaway was featured on some other 1980s Washburn superstrats, and is included on all but the cheapest Nuno models. It was designed to offer maximum access to the high frets by having an almost heel-less curved neck joint.
The N4 Vintage is the very same guitar used by Bettencourt on stage, and it retails for around £1500. Here are the specifications for the guitar.
• Built in the USA Custom Shop
• Aged solid alder body
• Aged hardware
• 22 fret maple neck with ebony fingerboard
• L500 Bill Lawrence bridge pickup
• Seymour Duncan ’59 neck pickup
• Schaller Floyd Rose tremolo
• R2 chrome locking nut
• Stephens extended cutaway 5-bolt neck joint
• Spanish luthier’s headstock joint
• 14″ pitch-angled reverse headstock
• Grover 18:1 tuners
• Buzz Feiten Tuning System