Binaltech BT02 Lambor

OK, here's where Binaltech gets a little confusing. It seems that, when Takara first approached Lamborghini with the concept of the line, their application for a license was flatly rejected... They had similar responses from several vehicle manufacturers, and were working with the Dodge Viper as an alternative to the Corvette Z06 for Tracks. Somewhere along the lines, GM changed their mind, so Tracks got pushed back in the schedule to accommodate the ideal vehicle mode, and so the Dodge Viper alternate mode was repurposed as Sideswipe - or Lambor, as he's known in Japan.

Of course, he was called 'Lambor' because that was short for Lamborghini... only now he's something else entirely...

Binaltech BT01 Smokescreen

More than anything else, two TransFormers toys - both released as part of the 20th Anniversary back in 2003 - were responsible for rekindling my interest in collecting. The first - no surprise - was MP01 Convoy. The second, which I was pleasantly surprised to find on a visit to Forbidden Planet, was this one.

Binaltech was presented as a sort of alternate timeline of events between the second season of the TV show and the animated movie, in which a group of Autobots who had become infected with the Cosmic Rust virus were rebuilt in new forms with the latest technologies and the aid of various real-life car manufacturers. Each vehicle was fully licensed by Takara and, while they tended not to be precisely the same vehicle as their G1 equivalents, they were either the latest iteration of the same series, or appropriately similar alternatives. They were also part die-cast, much like the G1 toys, and all made to 1:24 scale. I'd picked up the first few Binaltech figures before Hasbro's version - the all-plastic Alternators - surfaced in the UK, and tended to keep buying Binaltech because the Alternators tended to look quite lacklustre in comparison...

I wrote up one of my final Binaltech purchases way back at the start of this blog, so I figured it was about time I got back to the first of the line...

Armada Overload

It's funny, in collecting, how one thing can easily lead to another. I first saw Overload over a decade ago, and thought it looked like crap. Like most of Armada, it seemed to be oversized, unnecessarily bulky, lacking in both detail and articulation... Basically, an easy pass.

I'd felt much the same about Jetfire, even after buying the Collectors' Club's usage of the mold as Astrotrain back when I first joined, and it was only more recently - having finally replaced my broken Armada Optimus Prime cab - that I rediscovered how cool that toy actually was, and set about tracking down Jetfire just so I could create the proper Jet Optimus (aka Superpants Optimus Prime), which then led me to reconsider Overload.

Since, throughout 2018, Overload - and the Energon repaint, Ultra Magnus - turned out to be ridiculously expensive on the secondary market (upwards of £100 boxed, or in the region of £50 loose and not necessarily complete), I decided to have a quick shuffle through The Spacebridge's tubs at TFNation 2018... £20 later, I walked away with this figure, missing only the missiles for his spring-loaded launchers.

Armada Jetfire

It seems strange to be revisiting Armada - in the sense of actually adding to my Armada collection - but I'm pretty sure my few purchases of this year will be the last from that particular toyline. At the start of the year, I bought a replacement Optimus Prime cab to replace the one I broke while trying to photograph Timelines Astrotrain in Superpants mode the first time. In doing so, I was reminded of how much fun Prime was, and so felt compelled to get Jetfire so I could get some shots of the proper Jet Prime/Jet Optimus, and so spent a while trawling eBay.

Since a brand new, boxed Armada Jetfire turned out to be pretty expensive at that time (prices in excess of  £100 - far more than this toy is worth!), I decided to go for a second hand one, as complete as possible. Many of those available unboxed on eBay were missing parts, partially broken (the accompanying Mini-Con in particular) or both. The most likely one I found was without its missiles/bombs, but I was later able to obtain these separately.

I already know the mold and its shortcomings thanks to Timelines Astrotrain, but let's have a closer look at the original version of the mold...

Robots in Disguise Dreadwind & Smokejumper

While overlapping continuities are positively de rigueur now that Hasbro has separated the TransFormers brand into age groups and whole new branches of the toyline open up whenever a movie is released, it was fairly unusual about ten years ago. Nevertheless, around the time Robots in Disguise/Car Robots was phased out in favour of Armada, Hasbro decided to re-release a 1994 Generation 2 set as a swan song for RiD.

This is one of those odd situations where I don't remember exactly how/where I came to buy this... but I'm going to have to assume I picked it up loose because, according to my research, there's something not quite right about the set.

TransFormers Collectors' Club OTFCC 2003 Shadow Striker & Roulette

(Femme-Bot Friday #30)

Something a bit special for this one - call it a 'Thrilling 30th' of my own, to celebrate passing the 3,000 pageviews in month milestone in August 2015.

Proving that Femme-Bot toys aren't such a new thing after all, the Official TransFormers Collectors' Convention (not BotCon) 2003 accompanied its RiD/Car Robots reimaginings of Sunstreaker and Sideswipe with another pair of siblings. Not only were they Femme-Bots, but they were original characters, created for 3H Productions' expanded Universe line.

Like much of RiD/Car Robots, I wasn't especially keen on these to begin with. Since starting this Femme-Bot Friday feature, I've been picking up a few figures that I may otherwise have skipped. I've been repeatedly put off by some rather high secondary market prices (often pushing £100 - normally, but not always, including shipping), so when I found this boxed pair in the display cabinets of Orbital Comics, priced at a much more bearable £60, I decided to treat myself.

Micron Legend Scourge (TV Magazine Exclusive)

There are plenty of folks who like to own every available version of Optimus Prime, and both Hasbro and Takara Tomy are happy to keep up the supply. A friend of mine has had a similar 'thing' for Bumblebees since the first live-action movie, and Hasbro in particular are happy to release a multitude of that character, either refining and improving the model or just repainting the same thing until people realise they're buying literally the same model over and over again. By and large, I have no such compulsions... other than a mild case of Seeker OCD)... and I do like a good Nemesis Prime.

When I first spied this at Memorabilia, on The Space Bridge's stand, they were quick and keen to impress upon me that this was the infinitely superior Takara version, which featured none of the ugly beige plastic of the Hasbro version. Knowing nothing of the Hasbro version, but having an aversion to beige, I was instantly sold. Sure, it's yet another reuse of the Armada/Micron Legend Deluxe class 'Bendy' Optimus Prime, but it's one of a few well-regarded molds in a much maligned series and, let's face it, Nemesis Prime still has a long way to go before he becomes as ubiquitous within the TransFormers toyline as Optimus...

Armada Powerlinx Red Alert

Personal friends and long-time readers of this blog will no doubt be aware that I am no stranger to impulse buys. Pretty much every Armada purchase I made was an impulse buy, because I already knew that they were all a bit rubbish. Powerlinx Red Alert was an impulse buy on two levels - first, I was on a business trip and just happened to see it in a small, independent toy shop; second, while I was vaguely interested in the original, I wasn't remotely interested in this recolour until I saw it on that fateful day... So, do I regret this purchase?

TransFormers Collectors' Club OTFCC 2003 Sunstreaker & Sideswipe

It's funny to think that there was an annual BotCon before the current license-holders, Fun Publications, took it on, developing it into the bonanza of boxed-set toys it is now. Originally a small-scale affair with no real star guests, it led to the formation of a company whose raison d'etre was to run BotCon and which, in 2002, became Hasbro's officially licensed TransFormers convention operator (albeit operating under the less catchy name "The Official TransFormers Collectors' Convention" because the company split and the guys who owned the name 'BotCon' were no longer involved. Shortly thereafter, the company lost its license, and Fun Publications jumped in.

I only have a few of the pre-FunPub exclusives - these two and 2002's Tap Out - and it seems they're neither highly regarded or much sought-after. I have to confess that I probably only bought these because of one of my strange OCD issues: When it comes to TransFormers Lamborghinis, I've gotta catch 'em all...

Armada Unicron

In the wake of the 1986 Animated TransFormers movie, numerous attempts were made to create a toy of the Dark God, the Planet Eater, the Chaos Bringer, the Multiversal Singularity known as Unicron. Most never saw the light of day, except as either resin prototypes or display pieces at toy shows. In the case of the first attempts, this can only be a good thing... but, having seen the grey resin prototype of Beast Wars Neo Unicron, many fans - myself included - hoped that would get a full production release.

Sadly, it was not to be... but TransFormers: Armada, which later became chapter one in the so-called Unicron Trilogy, brought the Planet Eater to centre stage and, finally, a toy was released. No surprises, it took the largest size class - Supreme - to do the character justice... but is this the toy fans had been waiting for..?

Energon Sharkticon

Energon/Superlink is, in many ways, the odd man out in the Unicron Trilogy: each part had its gimmick but, in Armada/Micron Legend and Cybertron/Galaxy Force, it was common to both Autobots and Decepticons. Energon/Superlink, meanwhile, shook things up by giving the two factions their own, unique gimmicks.

The Autobots could combine (hence 'Superlink', though the system was called 'Powerlinx' in the Westernised TV series) in pairs (ideally of the same size class, but the joints were actually the same regardless of size) to form larger, more powerful robots. The Decepticons all had something called 'Hypermode', which generally popped out all kinds of extra weapons.

The implication, I guess, was that the Autobots won the day by co-operating, while the Decepticons relied entirely on heavier artillery...

TransFormers Collection #11 - Astrotrain

While every other reissue I've picked up is to supplement a lack in my original G1 collection, I felt compelled to buy this reissue, even though I own an original, for two reasons:

• My original has exceptionally weak legs, and can't stand
• This one has a far superior colourscheme in both modes

There's also the fact that it comes in the usual (excellent) TFC presentation box with Filofax pages...


While actually quite basic, these packages were always very effective - it must be be amazing to have the full set lined up on a bookshelf. I only have four of these and a further six in the US/UK packaging, which was styled after the original G1 packaging, but in a box similar to these. Of course, in many instances, the US/UK versions were cut-down or in some way different (read: inferior) to the Japanese reissues. Most of the time it was just lost chrome (one of my favourite things about the original G1 toys - chromed weapons looked brilliant!), but sometimes the overall paint job seemed somehow lacking.