It is the wonderful month of May, so here's my Monaco GP/Indy 500 tribute article to the amazing racing cars used in early G1 and Diaclone: The Racing Cars of Diaclone and Early G1 | TF Source News <- CLICK TO READ All the best Maz
I am always excited to see a new write up from you Maz-man. Have you been aware of the race car history for a long time or did you recently research this stuff? Either way, it makes for an interesting and informative read.
The real car references are the reason why Transformers were a hit for me. What happened? Will this beautiful aspect in our toys die with Alternators/Binaltech? MP 12 might be a good start. I hope.
Holy cow, I was seriously nerd-gasming when I saw the real life inspirations for Mirage, Jazz, Wheeljack and Smokescreen. So similar, even down to decals and numbers!!! WOW. Great work.
That right there is one of the main reasons I really like G1 - and Alternators/Binal Tech! I'd like the movie TFs much more if the robot designs were cooler and not a jumble of panels (seriously, license plates need not transform). Great article, man!
I wasn't aware of the precise history of each car number it before having to do the research, no. I was moderately familiar with the Ligier's history generally being a F1 enthusiast, but certainly the hardest one to nail was the #38 version of the Electramotive Datsun. Most sources seem to believe Takara just switched the #83 for #38 on the toy, but there was a one-off #38 livery for a Japanese event. I didn't do the research for this article though, I had already done it for my Joustra Diaclone articles on TF-1. Article joustralig Article joustrapor Article joustralan Article smokesample All the best Maz
yup, real cars to toys were what sucked me in with G1, and again later as an adult with alts. love these articles dude, please keep them coming!
Another excellent read! The 935 Porsche (Jazz) and the Electramotive Racing #38 Datsun 280ZX Turbo (Smokescreen) were some of my favorite racing cars 'transformed' into Transformers. That was back in the day when I thought the alt modes were more important than the robot models. Does anyone know if Takara originally had licensed permission to use all the recognizable car brands as models for their toys? I'm interested in why the cars were able to be accurate scale models, while Takara did change the sponsor names... And just think, only a couple of months ago a real-life 935/76 Martini Racing Porsche was sold at auction... for $2,530,000...
I originally thought it was because the Marlboro/Martini/Gitanes cigarette and alcohol advertising was against a policy for children's toys, but of course many toys would have replicated famous racing cars like McLaren Honda F1s from the 80s and early 90s, so it must have been the fees they would have incurred for using exact branding names? WOW!!! Unbelievable. That's just a whole different plane of collecting right there..... Nnnnnnnnng 911 GT1....ssssso awesome!!!! All the best Maz
Probably the fees... In the early 90's, I owned a RC racing car modelled on the John Player Special Lotus Renault 98T. Like you mention, there were no rules back then on limiting alcohol and tobacco advertising, even on products aimed at kids. I've never ever started smoking, but, boy, did that JPS RC-car make me want to (j/k )! Funny to see that in those days a very slight change to the brand names was al it took: Marlboor, Alitalla, Citanes, Martinii... Nowadays, that would DEFINITELY not fly.
Maz this was a wonderfully written article here. Such a great sense of history from both auto-racing and Transformers. Please keep these articles coming!
wow, great read, thanks for digging up where the 38 datsun came from, i've seen the 83 one before, but never the 38
Thanks for the kind words guys! Any excuse for me to talk about racing cars, motor sport, Diaclone and Autobot cars Yeah, plan is to keep churning out articles every week, and 1 collector interview per month. Only problem is, I have zero time left to write new stuff for TF-1. All the best Maz