Tried of reading to see if this was corrected so forgive me if somebody beat me to this.

All of the vehicular GoBots were good guys in Machine Robo. The small number of monster and rock toys supports a wandering samurai-vs-daily-foe storyline but not a civil war. You know, Tonka did choose a red, white, and blue motorcycle as the evil leader too. And a Mitsubishi Jeep. And a Ford Mustang, Chevy Corvette, and Lamborghini Countach. Along with a space helicopter, 1860s-style locomotive, and others.

Baron von Joy is a Guardian. A crackpot scientist but still a Guardian. Professor von Joy has about as many show appearances as Dr Go. Both sound German, paralleling how not all Germans were Nazis.

When Tonka imported the Machine Robo DX line, they had a very limited selection of molds. As I recall, there was an upsized Leader1, upsized CyKill, an orange truck, a space shuttle, two tanks, and five cars in the first two series (11). Well, obviously we know where Leader1 and CyKill would be assigned. They already assigned the small white shuttle as a Guardian so that's kind of a given. Most of the small red cars ended up Guardians (Spoiler, who was originally going to be Crasher, probably changed because it would've caused confusion with Turbo, being the sole exception). Then they split the tanks, making the smaller one a Guardian.

That leaves the truck and four cars. The truck comes with a trailer. Influence from Optimus Prime, if not Big Truck Robo, might've made that another Guardian. You have 5 Guardians, 2 Renegades, and 4 unassigned cars. There's no way 11 was going to be split evenly, dumping the remaining 4 cars on the Renegade side is the path of least resistance. It's not Tonka's fault that 3 of the 5 cars in that scale were VW.

Food for thought: Centurions is 3 good guys versus 2 evil guys and their drones. Hasbro could've easily made the 3 Seekers heroes (with interchangable parts), had Prime and Megatron stand in for Doc Terror and Hacker, and used the Autobot cars as drones. Then nobody would care enough about Jazz or Cliffjumper to argue about this  

 

I'm tired of reading posts like this too. Baron Von Joy was a Renegade, who was captured and reprogrammed into a good guy. It says so in one of the pages I snapped. So assuming the annual writers were working from a character bible (and episode guide) to write the story means this is probably Gobot canon. Shades of Operation Paperclip perhaps? Perhaps not. In any case, this is a discussion thread, for discussion.

Edit

 

This info connecting Volkswagen to Hitler was actually referenced in an unreleased iGear toy bio.

iGear Stinger (NOT-Bumblebee) and Rocky (Not-Cliffjumper)

--

"A little known fact, but the body-type that Stinger used on his home planet was commissioned as part of the “robot’s wheels” project commissioned by Horror Monarch to create an unified, energy efficient, easily repairable alt. mode for all robot citizens. Stinger was quick to rid himself of such a heinous vehicle shell, before picking what he thought was a less contentious Earth mode."

 

So, again, the line of argument is basically this:

1) Popy/Bandai releases unlicensed toys based on German cars in Japan.

2) Tonka acquires a license from Bandai for releasing these toys in the United States, still without license from the car manufacturers.

3) Tonka makes one of the German cars a good guy, and the other one a bad guy.

4) Some obscure English language media establishes that German car good guy was a bad guy at one point.

5) The same obscure media contains a fluff writeup centered around the second-hand observation that the characters based on German cars are portrayed as bad guys, with one of those cases seemingly being limited to this very same obscure media.

6) The car manufacturers not only get wind of their car designs being used for toys without license, but also that some obscure media established that one of the characters used to be a bad guy once before switching sides, and the same obscure media observes how the German cars are portrayed as bad guys.

7) These factoids are enough to anger the car manufacturer to the point where they would deny a different toymaker the license for basing one of their car-into-robot converting toys because of those obscure media characterizations and observations of toys by a different toymaker that was bought out by the other toymaker, and whose toyline has long since become a footnote in history.

8) This strong resentment based on factoids in some obscure media related to a different, decades-old toyline is still remembered and uphold decades later by whoever is in charge of the car company now.

9) Somehow the car manufacturers are aware of incidental background details of a Gobot character from some obscure media but are completely oblivious to the well-established characterizations of two prominent Transformers characters to the point where they enforce an ignorant "better safe than sorry" policy.

10) All of this somehow makes more sense than "German car companies with roots in World War II don't want to be associated with what they consider 'war toys'". In other words, Occam's razor is for wussies.


Did I get this right?

 

My father is a master auto tech and he absolutely loathes working on VW cars. He does it just fine but it sure is a bitch.

Let's also not forget that they fudged their emissions with an onboard computer designed to give inaccurate numbers to techs and inspectors while their cars could pollute unabashedly and their costs stayed low.

No wonder they wanna stay far away from Transformers, that is about as evil and smart as the 80s Decepticons.

 

Yet, the new movie bee is going to be most likely a volkswagen again.

 

Oh probably not, but it was too snide and joyless to read for more than a couple of lines.

 

Oh, it does contain joy. Baron Von Joy, to be precise.

 

Awkward.

 

Volkswagen is trying to rehabilitate their public image by endorsing/attaching themselves to a popular movie franchise.

Too little, far too late, or in other words, typical corporatethink.

 

I'm surprised that VW didn't say anything to Takara about this character from a Brave/Yusha GBC game (who transforms into a VW New Beetle). And this game was released in 2001 right around that whole licencing issue with the Autobot brothers yet VW never said anything about this character?

 

It's like with rid sideburn.

 

How come?

 

Dodge Viper?

 

I guess the point is "the car manufacturer didn't pay that much attention to what was going on in Japan; they might have been more attentive to stuff being released in the West".

 

Having seen the first few episodes of the gobots series recently, and after reading that, I'm no longer convinced the guardians are the good guys.  

 

Now hold on just a robot-lovin' second here! Not only does that book say that Professor/Baron Von Joy was once evil, but it also says his legs were plastic???!!!

Plastic legs. Now that's a horrible weakness when you're a giant robot.

 

Hi @tikgnat, i know this Is an old thread but, do you have a better picture of the first post? photobucket f*cked it up.

 

The rules are different in Japan.

 

Oh my goodness, I forgot about this thread. Because I'm lazy I'm not gonna trawl through my photos to find that pic, BUT luckily I put it on Twitter too, which seems to have a nice big version on there.

https://twitter.com/tikgnat/status/821085980111278080