On 5th April 2000, the first episode of Car Robots, 'First Deployment! Fire Convoy' or rather better known as 'Battle Protocol' premiered in Japan. It would be almost a year and a half before it'd find its way to the western television world, albeit heavily butchered as expected from Saban.

A few years ago, I managed to binge-watch the entirety of the original Japanese subbed version, one or two episodes a day. I even still have the first two or three volumes of the English "dub" on DVD.

Looking back, I can definitely say that while I admit RiD2001 is quite campy and cheesy with its obvious alterations, the original Car Robots is very underrated and deserves better love in my eyes.

Is it perfect? Probably not. But I think it might be the first 'proper reboot', at least the westernised version. The original sub is implied to be in Japan's idea of the G1 cartoon continuity.

But that's just some of my thoughts. How about you? Do you have any recollections of this short-lived series? Please feel free to express such down below.

 

This was actually the second TF show I saw on its first run (the first one being Beast Machines, whereas I saw G1 and BW in reruns), so of course it has a special place in my heart.

I feel the thing that made me like this show a lot was the amount of heart it had. Yes, it was simple, it was wacky, but you could tell that the people behind it just seemed to put a lot of effort and love into it.

The characters are pretty nicely handled and a lot of them got lots of wacky fun moments, with the Predacons being the winners in the hilarity. Even Megatron gets in on the hilarity train. However, the Decepticons do add a bit of menace while still managing to be hilarious.

The Autobots are all a quirky bunch as well, with Optimus being sort of the only straight arrow around. Side Burn, Prowl and X-Brawn are pretty fun to watch, Team Bullet Train has quite a bit of variety in personalities (from the old timer Railspike, the impulsive Rapid Run and the stuffy Midnight Express), the Build Team add a youthful element into the Autobots and the Spychangers have actually some of the more interesting personalities (with Mirage, Ironhide and Hot Shot being the standouts).

The humans are also pretty good. Koji is actually a pretty good human sidekick for the Autobots. He actually is pretty helpful in a lot of episodes and his motives for helping them are really nicely handled. And Kelly makes for a fun foil during the whole run.

So yeah, I have fond memories of this show and I hope it remains an enjoyable experience to many.

 

I have a huge appreciation of Car Robots for a number of reasons. For one, it was such a joy to see a more classic looking Transformers series again, especially after the disappointment that was Beast Machines. I still remember coming to this site to watch low res previews and the full episodes when they came out. The designs for the new characters and toys were fantastic, and to this day, Super Fire Convoy is one of my favorite figures, being able to hold up to modern designs despite being 20 years old. It also helped introduce to me a love of Black repaints lol - beginning with Black Convoy. This series got me back into collecting TFs, and I haven't stopped since. The series also helped me find this site, where I got to learn a ton about Transformers toys and history, and where I got to interact with a ton of great and knowledgable fans.

 

I feel like this series is way too overlooked and although it is not one of my favorites I still enjoy it and it should not be tossed to the side. It was the first TF show in the United States to show Optimus Prime lead the Autobots since 1987! Unless you want to count the repacked season 5 or G2 but first new material with actual Auotobot's in over a decade! First full on reboot of the franchise with complete new continuity and first time seeing Optimus be a fire truck on TV.

The show is not perfect but is a part of Transformers history and of course can't stand how RID2015 had to steal this shows title. Even if I liked RID2015 I wish they named it something else.

 

Transformers Adventure was a much better title for RID15.

Then again I only refer to RID01 as Car Robots, since the Car Robots original has everything fun from RID1 and much much more.

The Car Robots score is fantastic! Very dynamic and FLCL-esque.

 

I've always felt sorry for this series, sandwiched between the Beast Era and Unicron Trilogy. It's not the best, but it's pretty good overall.

Also, a great toyline.

 

I always figured this show’s main drawback was it played it safe. It doesn’t do anything new to generate discussion. Doesn’t introduce any new ideas or anything. Doesn’t do anything controversial. The animation is decent, nothing exceptional but not the kind of trainwreck that would keep people talking about it forever either.

It’s vanilla. It’s plain yogurt. It’s not bad at all. I do like the show & I love SkyByte. But whenever I think about why this show gets overlooked so much, I always come to the conclusion that it’s because it was perfectly average & didn’t take any chances.