That sounds like a modeling style guitar to me. There is the Line 6 Variax series...

http://line6.com/variax/

And then the Fender VG Strat...

http://www.fender.com/vgstrat/home.html

Hope that helps, and if anyone has some advice on how to convince my wife that I really need either one of those, that would be appreciated :)

Cheers,

Andy