It looks nice, and I'm a rabid ZT fan/collector, but I really don't get their marketing strategy here. They're calling it "custom" because it's available with hardware in any color you like...just so long as it's blue. Vague hints of more custom parts to come don't qualify that knife as custom or even customizable, at least to me. At the very least, this knife should be launched as a complete line with about half a dozen different hardware and scale options.
If it were me, and I were going to launch something called "factory custom", I would do what people
really want and offer a variety of custom finished OEM hardware and various colors/textures of OEM scales for the thousands of ZT knives they already own.
This smells to me like someone on the product development side at ZT had what would have been a great idea, but as it made its way through the corporate approval process, it got turned into what it is...a new knife with blue hardware, and talk of maybe, possibly being able to get hardware in other colors by third party vendors...that is, if they sell enough knives to make it worth those third party vendors while. Meh...
If they wanted to really gauge demand for factory custom knife parts, they should put their big boy pants on and do it right...at least that's how I see it.
ZT - If you're watching, I have Benchmades with blue hardware. Please try a little harder...I will buy.
