Fun, ain't it?

Yep, I forgot about them. So there were a lot more realistic Earth vehicles than futuristic/Cybertronian vehicles in G1, all the way through the line.

 

That is a very good question but I don’t think the answer would really put the issue to bed, mainly because it’s not exactly uncommon to find a 20 or 30-year-old car on the road today

And in regards to the cartoon I think it was a mixed bag of chips, I recall a number of episodes that showed a few older looking vehicles......And a few that showed futuristic vehicles and here are some of them

Civilian










Police and rescue






And earth defense command

 

We have no idea when any of the new cast members arrived on Earth. For all we know, Springer and Hot Rod got there in 1989.

Here’s the thing about alt modes: the original Ark crew scanned 1984 Earth vehicles for one reason only: to disguise themselves from the populace. By 2005, Earth already knew the existence of Transformers so there would have been no need for them to take the forms of 2005 Earth vehicles. The ones who clearly did (like Ultra Magnus and Goldbug) probably did it because they were on Earth some time before humans knew about them, or they simply liked that particular alt mode.

 

Pretty sure it was the Dome Zero, which ended production in 1986, ironically enough.

 

The Dome Zero is very obviously what Hot Rod's 2006 Classics toy is based on. His original 1986 toy, on the other hand... well, it certainly could be, but there aren't any direct similarities beyond the basic shape, which is shared by hundreds if not thousands of concept supercars from this era.

 

Me thinks the dome zero was more what the Classics Hot rod! Rodimus was based on. I feel the original drawing of Hot Rod from the movie however is more similar to the Bertone Stratos Zero

Dome Zero

Classics toy

G1 Hot Rod


Bertone Stratos Zero


Still need a good CHUG Hot Rod!!!

Hoping for a good Siege Hot Rod and Kup that are new moulds!!

The TR Hot Rod is good but not gr8

 

Even if, that would have been about 4 to 5 years into the future based on the date of the season 2 episodes

So still “the future”, and still futuristic earth cars would still fit as a possibility

Truthfully it was the Ark that did the scanning, not the crew, and yes it was to disguise themselves , but NOT from the populace of earths but also from the Decepticons..... which By 2005 was still a Necessity,

So scanning earth vehicle in 2005 still makes tactical sense in the war effort

Besides that, I think you are confusing story elements from the toy back story or the comics, in the cartoon they never hid them self’s from the populace of Earth, they were very open about their existence from the pilot

Remember, at the end of the pilot all earths governments got together and gave them fuel

And how long has it been Seneca you watched G1?

Goldbug was a rebuilt Bumblebee, and he was rebuilt by hand (tentacle) after 2006 by a Quintesson

Bottom line is that there are a lot of on answered questions but I see no reason to assume that the older characters could have just upgraded them self’s , just because new arrivals took modern altmodes, when there’s just absolutely no Evidence that was even possible

Again, on all 3 seasons there is not one example of any older characters getting a 2nd scanned altmodes upgrade

But we do see several new arrivals having earth modes

We don’t even ever hear an older character talking about getting a new altmodes/upgrade, and there are times you would expect it uf it was possible, I remember once Ironhide asked Wheeljack or Ratchet to adjust his speed to keep up with the stunicons

Dont u think if getting a newer scanned altmode was possible he would have asked for that instead?

Sorry, I don’t think so

 

The only thing the Bertone has is the way the windshield lifts up, and the curve of the back end. The rest is far too different. I'm aware that CHUG Hot Rod was taken directly from Dome Zero, but I'm guessing that it also played a role in the original's design. If anything, I'd say it's a mashup of both vehicles, plus a third one we're not aware of.

 

“Far too different”?
Sounds more like personal preference

Neither one is 100% spot on, but looking at both, they seem to have the same amount of differences

 

Who scanned them wasn't my point. My point was why they were scanned.

Not really, since by the end of the first episode, all the Decepticons and Autobots knew who each other were and their alt-modes, which didn't change after that. So it was more about disguising themselves from humans than other robots.

I've never read the comics. And the Transformers didn't reveal themselves to the general human populace of Earth immediately; that was done over time.

I've watched it since the '80's and still watch it today.

Again ,who rebuilt Bumblebee has nothing to do with my point. If Goldbug didn't like what he looked like or transformed into, he could have changed it again. He's a robot; he could be whatever he wanted. Obviously he liked being Goldbug enough that he felt he didn't have to change.

As I mentioned earlier, there's more evidence that Hot Rod, Arcee, Kup, Blurr, and Springer had their original Cybertronian alt modes rather than 2005 Earth alt modes. And since that's what Dery basically said, I have no reason to doubt him. The only odd ball is Ultra Magnus, but that's probably because he was on Earth much earlier than the others (but after "B.O.T.") and adopted an '80's or early '90's alt mode.

 

Was scanning a natural ability for TFs in G1 though or was it a bayformers idea to explain multiple Bumblebee toys?

I prefer the idea of having to rely on Teletran 1 to scan the alt forms instead. Makes TFs less omnipotent.

 

And I posted my counter to that, They were never really hiding from the humans only their enemy

Nope, not really anyway

It seems they only knew when they were in a group going to the same area

But there are enough examples of them not Recognizing each other when around normal earth vehicles

And again, they never hid from humans

In fact I dare you to find me one example in the cartoon of the autobots hiding from humans lol

it was more about hiding from the decepticons

Wrong
They never actively hid from humans.

Even in the pilot we see that and they even had contact with earth governments

And even within the first episodes after the pilot they were showing up in public areas

Yea it does because it had nothing to do with scanning

And it shows that getting an upgrade seems only possible by other means

It also shows that if they didn’t like what they looked like, changing it again wasn’t really possible in any easy way

He was near death when he got rebuilt, so it’s in no way as easy as you seem to imply

Sure you said that....and then provided zero evidence to back that up

And Dery statement is 20 + years after the fact, contradicts some of what we see in the series and the statement using canon

I see no reason to accept his words

So please post some of the “more evidence” you speak of

 

I gave plenty of evidence in my previous posts. Why you're choosing to ignore what I say, I have no idea.

 

Do you have any idea what constitutes as evidence?

The only things you provide it was....

1) your idea that if new guys can have a modern alt modes then the older guys should be able to upgrade. Even though we have never seen that was even possible

2) you claim the alt modes were to hide from humans, even though they exposed themselves to humans on the first 3 episodes, were making deals with all the worlds governments by the 3rd episode, had access to secret bases by the 5th episode

3) you claimed that the autobots and Decepticons Could recognize each other On site, and yet...

Ironhide could not even tell the difference between RedAlert and a regular car

A whole group of Decepticons could not recognize Tracks in car mode in New York City

And Blaster and Outback couldn’t recognize Dirge and Ramjet in Carbomia

I could go on but what’s the point, You were wrong on all 3 points

1) there’s absolutely no reason to believe that scanning a 2nd alt mode was possible or that they could just change modes because they didn’t like them

2) hiding from humans was never done in the cartoon, it was always about hiding from the enemy

3) and they only seemed capable of Recognizing each other when they were running as a group, the cons attacking or the Blatz coming to the rescue

They never seem capable of recognizing each other when running solo or actually trying to blend in

You provided absolutely no evidence whatsoever

You didn’t even provide the interview with FD, .......Which doesn’t account for much since his words don’t match his actions

Again please provide some evidence or at the very least point out what do you think you provided before

 

You guys are arguing over something that can’t be resolved! You’re arguing over some of G1’s glossed over inconsistencies.

You’re both right. Technically, every ‘84 bot does change alt modes at least once (except Shockwave.) In the pilot episode they go from Cybertron to Earth vehicles. Unfortunately, the details of that process are never fleshed out. Every time we see a change the robot is “dead” (and “dead” is another can of worms.) Can they change at will? Presumably, yes, unless you believe Smokescreen, Hoist, Red Alert, etc all crashed their ship into the Earth too. But you’re right, we never even get a hint of that in the series. And I suppose you could argue that Wheeljack even built every season 2 new guy like he did the dinobots. So there really is no 100% right answer. It’s just what you want to believe.

You’re both right. The tag line for the series is, “robots in disguise.” But you’re right we don’t see much hiding in the series. It is there if you look for it though. Notably, Soundwave spends probably the most time hiding from humans. Some scenes in early episodes kind of hinted that the Autobots were using their alt modes to keep a low profile on Earth, but you’re right, it gets chucked out of the window fairly quickly. That was one of the founding themes of the toyline, but for whatever reason the Marvel writers just didn’t really use it. So you’re both right.

 

Which is yet another can of worms. We're never actually told how the season 2 characters got there. Assuming they showed up later on another ship is one option. But several of these new characters suffered cybertonium depletion at the same time as the season 1 characters, suggesting they had actually been on the Ark and simply spent all of seaon 1 off-camera.

 

Never mind. You win pointless internet argument #1,264,485,295,427.

 

Budiansky in the marvel comics did use it a LOT making him one of the few to do so, but yes the Sunbrow writers dropped disguise as a big theme real quick, and almost none of the other media has ever payed much attention to it. (Not too sure about the Live actions to be fair, I saw the first one and nothing else. Though I suppose BM, having the beast modes hide their signatures from the Vehicons plays into it a bit, but I digress.)

Anyways the reason none of the old cast had new alt-modes int he movie was because they weren't going to spend time and money redesigning a bunch of characters slated to be killed or at best sidelines and replaced, and they wanted the audience to be able to quickly identify them, same reason the original 84' cast we saw on Cybertron had the same robot modes as they would on earth, cheaper and easier for the audience to just have them look the same on both Cybertron and earth. You can come up with a million "in-universe" explanations for either of those things and all of them are equally as right because there is no "real" "in-universe" reason.

 

This thread reminds me of how much I loved Psycho's design from "GoBots" growing up.

 

At some point, it seemed evident that Kup, Blurr and Hot Rod were stated as "futuristic" pickup trucks or race cars - implying they were Earth modes. But the packaging doesn't say that. The bios don't say that. The catalog doesn't say that. Why do I remember it that way?