Posted: 24 August 2008 at 2:11am | IP Logged

Has anyone got any pictures of the motorvators. I'm curious to see  how the energon figure gimmick works. From what I can gather, they're similar to headmasters, but are inserted into the chest are. Is this right?

Posted: 24 August 2008 at 8:42pm | IP Logged

http://www.tfu.info/1991/Autobot/Gripper/gripper.htm

http://www.tfu.info/1991/Autobot/Flame/flame.htm

http://www.tfu.info/1991/Autobot/Lightspeed/lightspeed.htm

(Not many images in the last one, I'm afraid).

And for comparative sake, heres the original Brainmasters.

http://www.tfu.info/1989/Cybertron/Blacker/blacker.htm

http://www.tfu.info/1989/Cybertron/Braver/braver.htm

http://www.tfu.info/1989/Cybertron/Laster/laster.htm

http://www.tfu.info/1989/Cybertron/StarSaber/starsaber.htm

One thing that annoys me is that Hasbro lost a good gimmick by taking away all the features that made the original toys work. But then again we were living a Micro Machine-induced market by then, so maybe they thought they wouldn't sell that way.

Posted: 26 August 2008 at 10:21am | IP Logged

I like these figures. Well, I would say that as I own them (!). They're a suprisingly large figure and the gimmick is well executed. Transformation is basic, to say they least. The bonnet of the vehicle flips over the back, pull the back of the car down to form the legs. With the underside of the car facing you, pull out the arms (on Flame and Lightspeed the hands flip out from inside the door panels).

The Brainmaster gimmick works thusly:

Flip open the robots chest compartment. Stand the 'Energon Mini Figure' in the chest cavity. Flipping the chest plate up activates a 'lift' mechanism that pushes the mini figure up into the empty head cavity. The shoulders of the mini figure stop at the top of the robots' chest cavity. The mini figure's legs continue to push up through its body pushing the robot face up into the empty head cavity.

Plug in energon sword et voila - your motovator warriors are ready to do battle with the mighty Overlord!

The original Victory gestalt looks ridiculous. Gripper/Blacker forms the main body of Road Ceaser with Lightspeed/Laster Flame/Braver making up the legs. Blacker gets some arm extentsions, but it doesn't stop the combined form looking clumsy and bottom heavy, which is perhaps why Hasbro UK just released the figures without the combing parts.