I always thought Jazz and the Datsuns were pretty close. My memory is a bit corrupted though, so I might be wrong.

 

omega had the whole head issue though

 

Most Accurate:
-Sky-Lynx
-Shockwave
-Trypticon
-Metroplex
-Grimlock
-Sixshot

Least accurate:
-Ratchet
-Ironhide
-Jetfire
-Seekers

 

Grimlock

 

I think Shockwave & Soundwave are the two most accurate.

 

No one mentions the Action Masters?

Despite all the hate they get from G1 fans, I loved them because they were cartoon-accurate and they were action figures.

Have to mention Hoist for the sake of completion -- they didn't oversimplify him at all for the cartoon as they did for so many other characters, although I wouldn't include him in my top 5 picks:

1. Shockwave
2. Soundwave
3. Grimlock
4. Trypticon
5. Sky Lynx

And adding to the list of worst:

- Brawn: the similarities between the toy and cartoon included color and vehicle mode, and that's it.
- Wheelie: Toy's robot mode looked like a hunchback.

 

been looking at toypics and cartoon pics and I must say so far

Scattershot takes most of the characters anyone of you guys have mentioned.

Scattershot vs Soundwave. Theya are almost identical to their cartoon show vs the toys. But Scattershot has correct eye color and Soundwave has not. Therefore Scattershot is more accurate then soundwave.

Scattershot should easaly be in the top 2, probably only beaten by Shockwave.

 

Come on, you guys; it was the other way around. The cartoon did not accurately depict the toys.

 

I started collecting few years ago with the Transformers toys that looked like their cartoon representation and back then we only had G1.

Astrotrain for me was dead on.
Datsun brothers were not bad
Soundwave/Soundblaster
Sky lynx
Skids

 

Sideswipe
Kickback
Long Haul

BTW, toy Menasor looks a lot cooler than cartoon Menasor. And Optimus Prime's head looked very different. Those yellow eyes were creepy, not heroic at all.

WSTF Starscream shows that a different colour scheme to the face with the inclusion of eyes would have rendered the G1 Seekers far closer to the cartoon.

The custom clip on heads on ebay for Ratchet and Ironhide really do improve the toys. Ironhide rarely gets put down these days. Plus Megatron made Ironhide toy accurate in the movie.

Some of my other modern favourites regards toon accuracy:

Mega SCF ROdimus
Robotmasters Starscream
Robotmasters Mirage
Anime G1 Bumblebee

 

Optimus Prime
Perceptor
Insecticons
Shockwave
Soundwave

 

G1 Ultra Magnus is good
G1 Optimus Prime is good
Dinobots are good (save for Swoop's colour discrepancy)
Coneheads are pretty accurate
Megatron's not as bad as you might think (look at side-on shots of his head)
Mirage.
Menasor's toy also matches the few times he was drawn on-model.
The Datsuns are good, so is Jazz.
Ratchet and Ironhide are good apart from the heads. And the Onebox components (Ratchet's repair table, Ironhide's battle sled) are part of the character models.
Seekers reasonably accurate.
Soundwave's good.
Wheeljack's good.
Percy's good apart from the face.
Hound... Okay, really they're almost all good. Except the Combaticons' robot modes. The heads are the ONLY part their character models have right.

My top five would probably have to be Optimus Prime, Mirage, Grimlock, Sludge, and Ultra Magnus.

Plus, what Nachtsider said.

 

This, what in the world was Hasbro thinking when they made these guys without heads

 

Remember that when Transformers first came to being, a lot of their toys were just repaints of Diaclone/Microman toys. Ratchet and Ironhide used to be just robot suits, and their "heads" were actually seats for the pilots.

 

Exactly.

 

Victory Leo.
Galaxy Shuttle..
IMHO, pretty much ALL of the Victory stuff were pretty close to their on screen character models.    

 

Since the toys preceded the cartoon, one could argue that the G1 cartoon is toy-inaccurate.

 

G-1 Menasor, Ratchet, and Ironhide

 

Predaking.

nuff said

 

Mirage and Hound always looked close to their toy counterparts