#1055 GO-BOTS - HANS-CUFF (MR-13) and SLICKS (MR-32) (1983 and 1984)

The first model today is a police car called Hans-Cuff or Police-Robo (MR-13). It belongs to the first series from 1983. It represents a Toyota Crown S110, which I tend to guess that it was used as a police car in Japan in the 80s. The car looks great, and the robot transformation is simple and nice. It has the same construction as many transforming robots that turn into cars.

As a general rule, I think that Go-Bots took special care on the alternate-forms of the robots, which are much nice than the alternate forms of Takara/Hasbro´s Transformers (personal opinion here).

The Formula 1 represents a Renault F1 from the early 80s and its called Slicks, although it is also known as F1-Robo or Renault Man (MR-32). It was part of the second series from 1984. As you probably know, the term slicks refer to the tires used in the speed racing championships, especially those used for good weather conditions which had no thread pattern at all (they are completely flat for a better grip). 

 

The Go-Bot behind it is rather complex, and difficult to transform. Due to its many parts, it is difficult to let it stand in a particular position, as, with the use, some connections or articulations are a bit loose. Still, as shown in the pictures, it looks truly great also in robot form.

Both robots were designed and commercialized by Tonka in 1983 in US, Canada and Japan and one year later by Bandai in other parts of the world, maybe with some colour changes or variations. The original Slicks was partly black, while this European Machine Robo version is completely yellow.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: HANS-CUFF (MR-13) and SLICKS (MR-32)
• Toy Line: Go-Bots
• Year: 1983 and 1984
• Company: Bandai (Japan)
• Size of the figures: Approx. 7-9 cm length

#972 METALCAR - RONY ROBOT (Around 1986)

APRIL IS THE MONTH OF THE BOOTLEGS and KNOCK-OFFs!

Some years ago, I published an unknown toy car that some reader helped me identify as a Metalcar from Hungary. Since then, I have as a task to write an entry about this company. 

Unfortunately, there is nothing I could find about this maker from Hungary, maybe there are some information sources in Hungarian in the net, but I didn´t found them, so I cannot talk about the company at all.

What I could find are many products made by Metalcar, where most of them are Matchbox knock-offs. This ambulance robot is much rarer, as it was more expensive to produce due to its great number of parts and difficult assembly.

The model may be familiar to many of you, as it is a knock-off of a Go-Bot called Rest-Q, released by Tonka/Bandai in 1983. It was probably made around 1985 or 1986 and it is an ultra rare figure. It was probably made in very low numbers, and its construction is not very sturdy. You can see that the paintwork is not very good, and some parts are scratched or missing its stickers.

It was sold originally in a blister pack, either with the Metal Car brand and the name Rony Robot, or in a generic blister card with the name “Transformer”. In the pictures I could find (in the-liberator.net), the blister “Rony Robot” shows a figure with red body, while the Transformer blister has a robot with blue body. Maybe they were packaged randomly, or there could have been even more colours available. The figure is completely unmarked.

Blister packs taken from www.the-liberator.net

 As a knock-off, the figure is the same size, construction and even the materials are similar. There are only subtle differences among them. The most significant is the wheels, which in this knock-off case, are made of only one piece. The original Go-Bot wheels had plastic hubcaps and gum tyres.

The cast and the stickers are also copied, but they are not identical. In the blister pictures, we can see that the stickers came unapplied.

Other differences are: red windshield, no chromed parts, body in red or blue instead of White, simplified head part.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: RONY ROBOT (GO-BOTs REST-Q Knock-off)
• Toy Line: None?
• Year: Around 1986
• Company: Metalcar (Hungary)
• Size of the figures: Around 7 cm (between  2’’ and 3’’) in robot mode

#944 GOBOTS – VAMP amd SCORP (MRD-101, MRD-103) (1984)

The Go-Bot line with vehicles, called Machine-Robo, had more than 50 references, including every type of vehicle. This one is the most famous line that everybody remembers, but the Go-Bots also had an alternative line of “monsters”, called Devil Invader Series, that had references with the letters MRD (RMD in Europe), instead of just MR (or RM), I guess, the “D” comes from Devil.

I have just two robots belonging to this series, one Batmobile-alike vehicle that trasnforms into a vampire robot, and a Robot-Scorpion. Both are very cool and imaginative, they do surprise much more than the vehicles line.

All MRD references seem to be evil characters, unlike the MR references, who belong to one of two factions: “Friendly Robots” or “Enemy Robots”, although this was not always like this… at the beginning, there was no reference to the filiation of the robots, if any at all, but in later catalogues, there are some that show the robots in two separate groups. Maybe this was a consequence of the animated series (1984-85) in which there were good a bad go-bots that fought against each other.

I just discovered a great website with all Go-Bot toys and I think it deserves being promoted so it stays the reference site on the Internet about this Popy/Bandai/Tonka toyline. Pelase visit: http://www.the-liberator.net/

It has been a long time since the last entry dedicated to these nice transforming robots, but I guess we won’t have to wait so much for the next one… I have some more robots awaiting in the line to be presented.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: VAMP amd SCORP (MRD-101, MRD-103)
• Alternate Names: CASMODON, ZARIOS (Machine Robo names/ Japan)
• Toy Line: Go-Bots (Series 2)
• Year: 1984
• Company: Popy/ Bandai (Japan) / Tonka (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: Around 8 cm

#845 TOYS FROM THE PAST - MUSEUM (VIII)

See more of these entries here: http://toysfromthepast.blogspot.com/search/label/TFTP

See you next month!

Important notice: The items on display are NOT for sale.

 

#274 GOBOTS – SPAY-C, REST-Q, ZERO and FLIP-TOP (Nrs. 14, 15, 39 and 40) (1983, 1984 and 1985)

In this entry I will present 4 more robots from my Gobots/ Machine Robo collection. The robots belong to the same series are these presented in entry #179, that’s the small “MR” series. There’s nothing in particular to comment about these, since they’re relatively common models.

SPAY-C (MR-14) and REST-Q (MR-15)

 

ZERO (MR-39) and FLIP-TOP (MR-40)

UPDATE (JUNE 2018) I bought the card for Spay-C, so I include it here for completion. It might be commented in future entries again. The front card shows a picture of the robot and its alternate mode (in the blister card, the toy came in its robot form). The backcard shows several models, mostly from the first produced (low reference numbers).

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: SPAY-C, REST-Q, ZERO and FLIP-TOP  (Nrs. 14, 15, 39 and 40)
• Alternate Names: SHUTTLE ROBO, AMBULANCE ROBO, ZERO ROBO and KAMAN ROBO (Machine Robo names/ Japan)
• Toy Line: Go-Bots
• Year: 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1985
• Company: Popy/ Bandai (Japan) / Tonka (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: Around 7 cm (between  2’’ and 3’’) in robot mode.