The Fender Jaguar guitar was introduced as a surf guitar when the less "rock and roll" and more mellow Fender Jazzmaster became popular among rock and roll bands in the 1960s. The Jaguar was based on the Jazzmaster, but had a sharper sound designed with surf bands in mind and a slightly different set-up. However, as the 1960s passed fewer and fewer took notice in the Jaguar (and the Jazzmaster) and, as a result, Fender had to stop production. But they never quite died, they would become popular in the underground trade/sell-marked and were soon to be revived.

As the 1990s came along the popularity of the Jaguar exploded when they saw heavy use by various grunge and rock and roll bands such as Nirvana and Sonic Youth and Fender saw the need to restart production of both the Jazzmaster and Jaguar.