Post by Philip Ayres on Oct 11, 2010 21:18:24 GMT
Tracks
Tracks is another Transformer car who first appeared as a Diaclone Toy, in this case #21 Corvette Stingray, the last Diaclone car to be issued. The Diaclone version has a red car bodywork with dark blue wings, head, launchers & missiles. The black pieces and the white chest under the car parts remain the same. The Firebird sticker is slightly different with a CS (Corvette Stingray) logo in the place the Autobot symbol would later occupy. This version of the car was shown on the 1985 version of the art found on the reverse of the box in the centre of the picture leading many to believe a red Tracks had been widely released. It is believed that a number of red Tracks were released in MB packaging in Europe, but I've never seen one personally. Interestingly the Japanese Version of the 1985 rear boxart shows the red Tracks in the middle but also a blue one about halfway down on the far right - was the intention to release two different Autobots using the Corvette Stingray mould? Were they thinking of using Tracks in red for the character that became Hot Rod ?
The Transformers version of the toy is bright blue, with a new 2 part firebird sticker with an Autobot logo in the middle. There's a hatch on the roof of the car, covered by the rub sign, which opens to let you put a Diaclone driver in to drive the car. The back of the car has a peg hole in it to allow you to attach a piece on which his white missile launchers attach, making Tracks one of the only Autobot cars to be able to use his missile launchers in vehicle mode. The car mode can be further modified by folding the robot's arms down under the vehicle, folding the rear wheels out to the sides which bring with it the robot's arms. The arms are then folded back as engines and a pair of wings are folded out from underneath them. The flying car formed by this can then be further armed by plugging the robot's gun into a peg hole on it's underside.
Transformation: fold the robot's arms down under the vehicle, folding the rear wheels out to the sides which bring with it the robot's arms. Fold the arms down to the sides of the car pointing forward and extend the hands out the ends of the arms. Fold the wings out behind the shoulders. Pull the front of the car forwards which splits the bonnet in two to form the legs. Rotate 180 just in front of the windscreen so the underside of the front of the car faces up. Fold the feet down. Fold the back of the car back to reveal the robot's head. Into the back of the car plug the mount and onto that plug the missile launchers. Slide the gun over one hand.
Track's robot mode keeps the blue from the car mode but adds in black lower arms, hands and upper legs on the body plus uses the same colour plastic for the missile launchers mount & gun. His upper arms, chest - under the car's roof - head, wings and the rear of his feet are white plastic as are the missiles and launchers. The front of the legs are metal. The face is painted red which makes the toy completely loose the delineation between visor and faceplate. His articulation is limited to the arms which swing to the sides at the shoulder and bend in the middle. He's capable of storing his gun in robot mode: it plus into the rear of his waist.
I'm quite fond of Tracks: he's got a nice vehicle mode and a decent robot mode, but the red on the face doesn't work and sucks some of the character out of the toy.
Tracks was released in the west in 1985 and in Japan the same year as Transformer number 44.
Tracks received a European Classics reissue in 1991, was part of Takara's Transformers Collection in 2004 where he was numbered 04 and released alongside Skids and as part of the US TRU exclusive Commemorative Series V with Inferno and Hoist
Tracks has a bit of an on/off life being remade in other Transformers lines: He was a European Action Master, an Alternator and Binaltech toy, the last of which was initially coloured yellow for some curious reason. There's a soon to be released Generations/Reveal the Shield Turbo Tracks which I'm looking forward to.
E-Hobby Road Rage
Tracks gets the obvious E-Hobby repaint in his Diaclone colours. Blue car bodywork becomes red while the missile launchers, missiles, head & wings become dark blue. The face is painted silver and in a concession to him being a Transformer he now uses the modified Autobot Firebird on his bonnet.
Road Rage was paired with Crosscut, a repaint & remould of Skids. Both were individually boxed but sold as a pair. This release is an E-Hobby exclusive that "compliments" the release of Transformers Collection 3 & 4.
So I'm doing the preparation work for this review, I call up the Diaclone Tracks page to get the url to link to it and I spot a Tracks there I'd never seen before. Research time. Fortunately Maz has done the hard work for me and
The car mode is entirely cast in black and looks gorgeous. Transforming to robot mode we find the parts that were black on tracks retain their colour while the white parts are now grey. The face on the Transformers version is painted gold. The original Diaclone version differs *slightly*: like Diaclone Red Tracks the body under the car parts is white while the face is painted a turquoise green.
Lovely, lovely repaint. Forget owning it, but I can see a Botcon/club version of Generations Turbo Tracks being made using these colours down the line.