Squier Pro Series advert, 1996 Fender Frontline. For guitarists of a certain vintage, this ad might have recalled the series of classic '50s and '60s Fender ads, headlined “You Won't Part With Yours Either’, which featured guitars in unlikely outdoor action settings.

Squier had been useful to Fender in competing with Eastern copy guitars, but in the early-90s its purpose had become unclear, and it looked close to collapse because its competitors now were attacking the Squier brand by offering more features, better woods, and more colors and finishes at the same price points where Squier lived. 
Korean Squiers were turning out to be a big failure because their plywood-body guitars were subject to severe negative marketing, and Squier was slowly losing market share to its competitors.
Fender had to ratchet up the quality of the Squier brand, so they decided to introduce new “deluxe” Squier models to complement the cheaper Squier Standard series already in the catalog, the Pro Tone Series. 

Pro Tone instruments' designs were drawn up at Fender HQ in Scottsdale and sent out to Korea. Once the prototypes were ready, John Carducci, then Marketing Manager for Squier, went to the Cort factory in Korea to make sure that all the details were very Fender-like.
The Squier Pro Tone Stratocaster and the Squier Pro Tone Fat Strat were available between 1996 and 1998 at a moderate price if compared to the other Squiers.
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A new type of logo that harkened back to the spaghetti-style look of the classic vintage Fenders was used for these guitars. 

The new Squier Logo on the Pro Tone Series

According to John Carducci, they made this change because the Squier logo should have been a “badge of honor, instead of implying that it was the badge of dishonor. It was all done to help Squier stand on its own, to give it its own identity”.
The original idea was to remove the words “By Fender” from the headstock, but they prefer to leave it next to the Squier decal, not so much to add credibility to Squier, but for trademark protection.

The beautiful solid ash body of Pro Tone Stratocasters was available in the stunning “see-through” finishes Vintage Blonde, Trans Crimson Red, 3-Tone Sunburst, Trans Sapphire Blue (sometimes turned to green over time), and Trans Green, plus Olympic White for the SSS model and Black for the fat model, both with matching headstock. Furthermore, Crimson Red, Sapphire Blue, and Black Pro Tone Strats had all gold hardware.  
Appreciated upgrades were the Precision Die-Cast tuning machines and the alnico-loaded single-coil pickups with staggered pole pieces - previous Korean Squiers featured rather sharp-sounding ceramic pickups - that delivered an authentic woody twang with plenty of clear-toned attack on top. 
The bridge humbucker of the fat model darkened things down a fair bit, but increased output and sustain.
The 21-fret fingerboard radius on Pro Tone Stratocaster was 9.5” - just like Fender USA - while the Pro Tone Fat Strat featured a contemporary 12” radius for choke-free bending and 22 frets.

The beautiful Sapphire Blue finish

The Pro Tone Stratocaster featured a vintage-style tremolo bridge with hardened steel saddles, which didn’t wear quite so easily, avoiding those razor-sharp edges causing the strings to snap at the most inopportune moments. The Pro Tone Fat Stratocaster sported a Floyd Rose licensed double-locking vibrato unit that allowed a more than adequate amount of up-bend.
The “Crafted in Korea” decal was at the base of the neck, just above the serial number, which was either composed of a “KC” prefix followed by an 8-digit number or an all-numerals 7-digit serial number.
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Vintage Blonde Pro Tone Stratocaster

Pro Tone Fat Strat

The reason why the Pro Tone disappeared from the catalog in 1999 was, strangely, their success. The Squier Pro Tone series was extremely popular, but some of its price ranges were in the same ranges as the Fenders out of Mexico, and Fender was losing sales from their Mexican-made guitars. In 1997, the regular Mexican Standard Stratocaster cost $429.99 and the Floyd Rose model $529.99. In the same year, the price of Pro Tone Strats went from $499.99 to $639.99 depending on the model. So, it was the Pro Tones that got the attention of guitarists. But Fender was focused too much on Ensenada's guitars to allow this. 

Antonio Calvosa