| An interesting topic, on which I would say most will advise you to go for a genuine vintage model and have it bought up to spec if necessary. A lot of logic in this point of view, mostly justified as there have recently been some reliability issues (although now seemingly solved) with newer SVTs.
I can only comment based on my limited personal experience: for years I ran a lovely seventies SVT which slowly became more and more unreliable, fixed one thing and next gig something else would play up. I know that this is not typical, but it did happen to me. About a year ago I bought a new Vietnam made SVT VR, in a nutshell it has behaved perfectly, to my ears the tone and grunt easily matches my old seventies model when it was behaving properly. So I would confidently buy a new SVT VR again, especially now that issues over reliability seem to have been fixed. Members like JimmyM and JohnK who regularly have the opportunity to play through a variety of recently manufactured 'pegs would seem to support the view that reliabilty issues have been solved, although I cannot speak for their preferences. Either way, if you go for a new one I would recommend the VR over the CL, and personally if it was me I would buy new. | 
