KitchenAid × Fender

Announced July 14, 1958, at the National Housewares Exhibit in Chicago, the K5-F came about because two trade shows were in the same city in the same month. A Hobart sales manager walked across town to the NAMM show to look at the new Jazzmaster, asked Leo Fender how he kept nitrocellulose lacquer from chipping on a working tool, and was told he didn't, and that players liked it better worn. Egmont Arens was sent the reply and a Fiesta Red body blank, and Freddie Tavares spent a week in Troy that March.

Arens left the K5-A mostly alone: the bowl-lift column, the planetary head and the five-quart stainless bowl are standard. What changed came from Fullerton. Hobart's baked enamel gave way to air-dried Duco lacquer, the Ford colour Fender had been spraying on Stratocasters. Tavares cut a broad contour into the front right shoulder of the motor head, the same shallow bevel he had worked into the Stratocaster for the forearm, so a cook scraping the bowl could rest an arm on the machine instead of the bowl rim. The chrome trim band became a gold anodised aluminium guard held by eight screws, cut on the jigs used for the 1957 Precision Bass pickguard. The speed lever gained a white plastic tip from the Stratocaster selector, and the bowl-lift handle a knurled dome knob from the Telecaster.

The Fender idea that mattered most is at the back. On the K5-A the head is fixed to the column internally. Leo Fender asked for it to be bolted through a plain chrome plate with four screws, stamped with the serial number and nothing else, exactly as on his necks, so a dealer could lift the head off for a motor service in ten minutes. Attachments travelled in a lacquered tweed case with brown leather ends and a plush lining, made by the supplier of Fender's guitar cases and sized, according to the drawing, to hold one food grinder or two pairs of strings.

McCall's said it was 'the only mixer in the show that looked as though it had been on the road'. Housewares buyers were unsure about red when pink was selling, but the Los Angeles office reported repeat orders from studio musicians' households. Serial plates began at F 0101. Fender kept F 0100 in the Raymond Avenue lunch room, where it made the staff birthday cakes until CBS bought the company in January 1965 and the room was refitted.