Okay, so I just kind of blindly stumbled onto this. The fandom has known about recolored Autobot Mini-Cars from Brazil and Argentina, and Maz has been furiously documenting finds from Peru. But I think I've run into the first solid documentation of G1 TF releases in Venezuela - courtesy of this blog post!

Figuras de Acción - Action Figures: Robots Venezolanos: Transformers de Rubiplas

From what I can quickly glean, it looks like Venezuela only received five Mini-Cars - Brawn, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Huffer, and Windcharger - which were sold by a company called Rubiplas. Rubiplas also had the license to sell G.I. Joe, and other posts from this blog indicate G.I. Joe started showing up in Venezuela in 1990, but it doesn't actually give a sell-date for the TF line.

Of course... I honestly feel kind of silly posting this, because I realize that there are active Venezuelan Transformer fans in the community. However, I couldn't find anything about the G1 releases in English after a brief search, with this article even stating that "to this day, there is virtually nothing known about the releases in Venezuela". So, ah - I suppose this can be used as an opportunity to speak up and educate? Were there more color variants, for instance? More information on foreign TF releases is always something I welcome!

Image of the Venezuelan Mini-Cars (featuring red and yellow Huffer) courtesy of the Figuras de Accion blog.

Monzo, who hopes he isn't embarrassing himself with this...

 

Damn, now I need to find "Iron Huffer"

 

Interesting, like Peru, no chrome, bright colors, and Cliffjumper and Bumblebee with plastic tires...

 

Word.

And I wasn't sure whether to go with "Iron Huffer" or "McHuffer"....

 

I knew of these but never thought it to be 100% true as I only ever seen loose ones, As I thought they were Peru minis that were sold there but the packages proves me wrong   Thanks for the info as I love when more secrets get unlocked!

 

Hello all!  

(Thanks for the heads up about this thread Monzo)

I can back up the article written by figurasdeccion in his blog.

I don't quite remember the date/year when those toys were sold. I seem to remember both the first G.I.Joe toys and the Transformers being sold during the late 80s instead of 1990 ... but I guess figurasdeaccion made his research, so I trust that over my own recollection.

A couple of odd things I do remember relating to dates:

1) I graduated high school in 1991, and I already had those toys by that time.

2) A friend of my mom, gave me one of the toys as a birthday (or x-mas) present, but it turned out I already had it; so she went back to the store to exchanged it for the yellow Cliffjumper from the same series. (By that time I already had the red Cliffjumper, so I didn't mind having a differently colored one)

3) The next year (or the next x-mas/birthday), she gave me another mini-bot which I already had. This second time I went with her to the store, and somehow convinced her to exchange it for a U.S. release Targetmaster Quickmix (I had to use my money to complete the payment, since the import was much more expensive). I guess that would make the date either x-mas of 1988, or my birthday in June of 1989, judging by Quickmix's original release year.

From what I remember, and from what I own:

- Only 5 mini-bots were produced: Brawn, Windcharger, Huffer, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper.
- All were packaged in blisters. I still have the 5 cardbacks, but no bubbles.  
- Plastic wheels.
- The plastic is weaker than on US and Japanese releases, almost feeling like KO plastic, but I guess somewhat better. The yellow plastic in particular is almost translucent.
- Almost no paint apps ... or better yet: zero paint apps.  
- Huffer was produced in red and yellow. Ever since I've been aware of Argentinian and Brazilian variants, I've been trying to find a packaged Huffer, but with no luck.
- The rest were produced in their original colors.
- Two variants were produced on top of the regular five: red Bumblebee and yellow Cliffjumper.
- The card cross-sell picture showed all 6 1984 mini-bots. I spent months looking for Gears. Never found it. Common knowledge nowadays suggest that it wasn't produced.

Back in November of 2007 I contacted Maz about doing an article on Venezuelan TFs. Sadly I haven't been able to photograph my toys and cards (I keep forgetting  ), so I haven't sent him anything yet; and as you can see, figurasdeaccion's blog post covers pretty much everything about the releases here in Venezuela.

Also, I've been trying to find any of the venezuelan TFs packaged, both for my collection, and to trade/sell to the fan community, with no luck. (I'm not interested in selling mine, of course)

I guess figurasdeaccion's blog post is the first attempt by any of us on this side of the Caribbean to get that documented. He'll be happy to know you found it.  

-airfox

 

Remember this! and by the way I have a Ro Jet!

 

Ahh... Ro-Jet.

figurasdeaccion wrote about those two as well: Figuras de Acción - Action Figures: Robots Venezolanos: X-4 y Drago

I don't think those were licensed though.

P.S.: they're big.

-airfox

 

About this Drago, was there a version with a red head? not sure but I think had some similar bot with a red head...anyway it was a long time ago.

 

Very interesting and cool. I like seeing things like this.

 

Interesting stuff... just more for the minibot collecting fanatics!!!!