Cybertron Brakedown GTS

I noted in my writeup of Galaxy Force Autolander that he seemed to be a homage to Kup in his overall appearance, but that it took a repaint to make it more apparent... and here is that repaint!

 

I'm not sure I ever understood what the whole 'GTS' suffix thing was about (outside of allowing Hasbro to release repaints that weren't even new characters) but it certainly brought with it some interesting reuses of a variety of molds... at least some of which were better than the original.

But is Brakedown one of them..?

 

Galaxy Force Autolander

With all the obvious homages going on in the Galaxy Force/Cybertron line, some of the smaller, more subtle references slipped past. Autolander was particularly interesting because his homage to Kup - not obvious at first glance - was made more apparent by Brakedown GTS, a repaint in the later waves of Cybertron toys.

Revenge of the Fallen Brakedown

Or Breakdown, to give him his true name. Not quite sure why the name change - for some strange reason, I thought it was due to the particular car alternate mode 'Brakedown' had been applied to in one toy line or another but, after G1 Breakdown, the next character to use the name was Brakedown from Cybertron (named Autolander in Galaxy Force)... I thought there had been some kind of deliberate avoidance of the suggestion that whatever type of car would 'break down'... but it seems I made that up!

Out of all the Generation 1 references thrown into the Revenge of the Fallen toyline, Breakdown - yes, I'm going to settle on using his real name - is the most blatant. He's approximately the same type of car (just a little squashed), with an almost identical colour scheme to the original. Thankfully, his transformation has moved on in the last 25-odd years, the better to keep to the movie series aesthetic.