How to choose guitar for funk

[poeticprizm]

I've decided that my next guitar purchase will be a guitar for funk. id love to have a hard tail strat like Nile Rodgers plays, and i can't afford his hitmaker model. is fender even still making hard tail strats? I'd love to find something inexpensive, like a squire or the such. since tele is a hard tail would it make a good substitute for a hard tail strat? there are some nice teles out there that aren't too expensive. do hard tail squire or mim strats even exist?
or are there other affordable strat like guitars with hard tails? I don't really know what's out there these days, because I pay so little attention to the strat/tele world, but I do know that I want to get that Nile Rodgers type of sound and vibe. I've played funk for many years, but never had the right guitar for it, my les paul can do it, but even with the coils split,it still doesn't give that funk vibe/sound/feeling when I play it. my PRS se Mahoney does a pretty good job with the coils split, but it still isn't the right guitar.
I'd love to hear from anyone who plays funk and their thoughts.