The Great Cybertronian Write Off - Week 6

After a short break, the Great Cybertronian Write Off returns for 1985's G1 Transformers entries! Myself, Sixo, Toybox Soapbox - with design by tikgnat - have been producing poster-style mini-reviews of G1 Transformers toys daily, with our own photographs, all stitched together and presented in the style of vintage UK and Euro G1 paperwork. Why? Well, in order to give Transformers fans a tiny little something to look forward to daily at a time when most of us are confined to quarters!

The Mysterious G1 Tracks Stickers

Generation 1 Transformers are magical. Not just the toys, but everything that surrounds them, to this day. The fact that I am finding it impossible to do a straightforward stickering of a vintage or reissue G1 toy without finding some mystery, inconsistency or long-ignored point of fascination is a credit to just how mad everything being produced at the time was, and just how much this hobby and this area of Transformers collecting still has to offer even seasoned enthusiasts. This is how I came to discover that most of us have been stickering G1 Tracks incorrectly for 33 years!

Masterpiece Tracks Prototype - Toy Face?

We know how the current TakaraTomy Transformers Masterpiece line operates by now. Cartoon likeness for the Generation 1 Transformers cast is a priority for release and where possible the designers inject much enjoyed references or likeness to the original G1 toys (occasionally descended from Takara Diaclone or Micro Change Series lines). MP-21 Bumble has an Amazon exclusive toy-style battle mask, MP-17 Prowl had Amazon exclusive toy-style missile launchers. So, when Masterpiece MP-25 Tracks was revealed with a cartoon-accurate humanoid face and no plans for an exclusive toy-style battle mask replacement or add-on option, we looked to the repaint, MP-26 Road Rage. That too was released with a brand new female humanoid face and no add-on options or exclusive, so neither version of the Masterpiece Corvette Stingray paid any homage to the much loved toy face of the mould either as a Transformer or a Diaclone. With no removable section on MP-25 or MP-26 faces, we have seemingly been denied a toy homage. Now it has come to light that this, it seems, was not always the case.

Masterpiece MP-26 Road Rage

Welcome to an extended gallery of images for Takara Tomy Transformers Masterpiece MP-26 Road Rage. Road Rage is basically a red version of Tracks whose roots lie in Takara's 1984 Diaclone Car Robot No.21 Corvette Stingray released in Japan (in red of course). With the red Corvette Stingray imported and sold in countries like Italy (GiG) and mainland Europe (Ceji Joustra) under the Diaclone banner, it's no surprise that collectors have memories of actual red Tracks toys, not just the artwork on the back of 1985 Hasbro boxes. In 1985, when Hasbro and Milton Bradley took over the licence and stock from Ceji Joustra to sell Takara's transforming Diaclone and Micro Change Series toys in mainland Europe, they inherited a gaggle of red Corvette Stingrays. These were subsequently repackaged into Transformers boxes (MB badged) and so was born a bona fide Transformers Red Tracks. In 2002, E-Hobby paid tribute to this colour scheme by releasing a red version of the reissue Transformers Tracks called "Road Rage", a character created for that E-Hobby release, and a female Autobot to boot. Here then is Masterpiece Road Rage, a repaint of MP-25 Tracks with newly sculpted head, hands, thighs and waist to differentiate her from Tracks. Oh, she also comes with the toy-accurate handgun, a mini Twincast, the small laser for the front of the vehicle... and a gorgeous red deco. No display stand, no Raoul and no "CS" on the hood for "Corvette Stingray".

Masterpiece MP-25 Tracks - Full Gallery

Here is the full hi-res gallery for MP-25 Masterpiece Tracks, I hope you enjoy it! You can find the full review with smaller pictures here in the TFSource review.

Goodbye Binaltech

From the very beginning I've been a fan of Binaltech and Alternators, and even when I sold off the latter in one of my many culls, the Binaltech survived. They survived everything, the Diaclone sales, the G1 sell-off, the Animated, CHUG, Movie, artwork and reissue clearouts...you name it, Binaltech stayed. They were at the core of everything I held dear as a Transformers, Generation 1 and model car enthusiast. I even wrote a slew of detailed articles on TFSource Blog to summarise the series up to BT-18 here, here, here, here, here and here, and made a lot of friends by writing the articles at the time of release for TF-1.com here. Having previously declared to the world why I would never sell them here, I have now put virtually all of them up for sale and already said goodbye to a fair few. 

How to get a G1 Rotorstorm For Free (Part 5 - Finale)

 

Here it is, the final chapter in my mission to get a G1 Rotorstorm complete and totally free of charge. What started out as just a desire to have a Transformers figure I'd never known about - or seen - because I fell in love with it at first sight in hand as cheap as possible, turned into a self-fuelling quest to prove that it was possible to be resourceful and imaginative, and score one in good condition and with all parts without paying a penny overall. It was a completely unreasonable expectation, you cannot collect G1 Transformers for free. I was doing quite well though to begin with, and the picture at the head of this article tells you all you need to know about how things worked out, but did it actually work out free? You'll know by the end of this.

How to get a G1 Rotorstorm For Free (Part 4)

 

Welcome to another episode of 2 Broke Bots. You thought it was over, right? That I'd settle for costing myself £2.21 and a rotor-less Rotorstorm? Well I certainly did, before another opportunity presented itself. An opportunity involving a 3-wheeled, one-armed Japanese Diaclone Police Sunstreaker in a worn box being sold on the other side of the world. If things didn't work out I would end up over £150 in the red with no complete Rotorstorm to show for it. Here's what happened...

How to get a G1 Rotorstorm For Free (Part 3)

How does one get a G1 Turbomaster Rotorstorm figure free of charge? Well certainly not how I was going about it, as you can see from Part 1 and Part 2. £26 down approximately and only just getting something worth mentioning in return. Having sourced the barest Rotorstorm body from France and traded everything else in the French job lot for Rotorstorm launchers, landing skis and 4 missiles, it was starting to look like a decent figure, but I was out nearly £30 and for that kind of money I could have gotten a complete one, maybe even a boxed one on a good day. Impatience doesn't pay in this game, but there was hope... 

How to get a G1 Rotorstorm For Free (Part 2)

Here's the story so far. After getting the junk lot in from France containing a decent G1 Turbomaster Rotorstorm body, I realised a good deal of the figures in the lot were not in best condition, so resale was going to be a problem. I still needed a set of landing skis, 4 missiles, 2 launchers and the seemingly impossible set of pink rotor blades. I was starting to flirt with the idea of just going out and buying another Rotorstorm with the bits I needed, then just selling off what I could from the current one as well as the Actionmaster Tracks, minimising the damage. Things suddenly took a turn for the better though.

How to get a G1 Rotorstorm For Free (Part 1)

 

Recently I experienced the G1 Turbomaster Rotorstorm toy for the very first time, from an era of Transformers that completely passed me by. To be fair, I was ignorant of the quality of toys from the 1990s and as a result missed out on one of the gems of Generation 1. I knew of Rotorstorm's rising popularity as a result of the comics featuring The Wreckers, but the toy's qualities were only made obvious to me when Colin Pringle (Specimen17) brought one out to a UK meetup a few weeks back. The toy's head sculpt and general proportions blew me away. So how did I manage to get one for free?

Takara G1 "44 Tracks" Quickie

In 1985, Takara released the first 2 series of the Transformers in Japan with their own numbering system, and in that system the Autobot warrior "Tracks" was 44. Tracks is one of the more tricky Takara Cybertron cars to find boxed and in nice condition, up there with 07 Ligier (Mirage), 25 Trailbreaker, 03 Wheeljack and 08 Streak. Although, the difficulty of each Autobot car in Japanese packaging does depend on who you talk to, many have differing experiences. One thing everyone will agree on, though, is that this particular 44 Tracks specimen is a show stopper.

Milton Bradley G1 "Red Tracks"

A giant of vintage Transformers Generation 1 variations, the original red version of the 1985 Autobot Tracks. First seen and made famous as a Transformer on the back of 1985 Hasbro packaging, it didn't take as long to deduce the reason for that artwork's red depiction of Tracks as other mysteries in the hobby have taken. The Tracks mould was originally "Corvette Stingray" in the Japanese and Italian (and Finnish) Diaclone Car Robot lines by Takara, where its first ever colour was red. Undoubtedly using Takara samples for reference, the artists depicted a red Tracks on the 1985 box back artwork for Transformers packaging, but of course the toy was released in blue everywhere. Everywhere, that is, except mainland Europe.

Selling Art Is Hard

When Alternators and Binaltech were huge, I bought as much original box artwork for the Alternators toy line as I could get my hands on. Why? For investment purposes? Hell no, have you seen the artwork for Alternators? Created by Transformers comic and toy industry legends Marcelo Matere, Alex Milne and Guido Guidi amongst others, they were the lovechild of the best official TF artists around and the best looking Transformers toys we'd had in years. If I had not bought them at the time when they were offered by the artists themselves at conventions, I might have lost the chance to get them forever. Having these pieces of unobscured, full-size history was the mightiest honour and pleasure an Alternators/Binaltech fan could experience. And I loved them, and displayed them fully.