Cyberverse Gnaw's hitching a super charged ride on RID Prowl.

 

Grid 'o' Go-Bots!

All the releases of the original 6 G2 Go-bot aka Spyachanger molds

Rows:
A : Porsche mold (Blowout)
B : Lamborghini mold (Firecracker)
C : Stock race car mold (Gearhead)
D : Pick-up truck mold (Motormouth)
E : Concept car mold (High Beam)
F : F1 race car mold (Double Clutch)

Columns:
1 : G2 Wave 1
2 : G2 Wave 1.5
3 : Takara / Botcon
4 : G2 Wave 2
5 : CR retail wave
6 : CR Jusco exclusives
7 : RID wave 1
8 : KB exclusives wave 1
9 : KB exclusives wave 2
10 : Takara blindpacks
11 : Takara blindpack chases
12 : Universe Walmart exclusive Ironhide (aka Trailbreaker)

(I've heard of some variants with wheels, but I've ignored that, so ignoring here.)

G2 Wave 1 is of the original release of the original 6 Go-Bot/Spychanger molds. Wave 1.5 replaces translucent plastic with opaque and renames Blowout to Megatron and Firecracker to Optimus Prime. Since gang-molded and since Motormouth and Gearhead had some translucent parts, they have variants in this wave while High Beam and Double Clutch do not, so 'blank' spots in the grid for them.

Takara 'mixed and matched' wave 1.5 and wave 2 a bit to create their Megatron, Optimus Prime, and Soundwave. Adding the "T" Transformers deco from Soundwave onto Megatron and Optimus as well and altering plastic colors due to gang-molding. Prime's shins change from yellow of Gearhead to the "neon-yellow" of Soundwave and Soundwave's inner parts also changed to the car body colors of Megatron and Optimus. Nightracer potentially comes from these being produced since she her inner parts have the neon-yellow of Soundwave/Bumblebee. I just have a stand-in custom for Nightracer filling in this spot in the grid. No Motormouth or Double Clutch analog was released, so more blank spots.

G2 Wave 2 were full re-colors and had G1 character names. Several years later and Takara releases these molds as the Spychangers in Car Robots. Along with a rainbow of translucent exclusives from JUSCO stores. Hasbro later released the Spychangers with a slight change to the deco showing their Autobot sigils all the time instead of the heat sensitive ones on the Car Robots versions.

Hasbro then released a wave of the Spychangers exclusive to KB stores with all the same colors/deco except plastic was all translucent and X-cars blue paint was turned a made a bit brighter. And they followed that up with another wave of KB exclusives in transulcent but differently colored plastic, somewhat Hasbro's version of Takara's Jusco exclusvies.

The last few releases of these original 6 molds included blindpacked "Super" Spychangers released by Takara that had the CR deco patterns but different "Super Mode" colors, along with the blindpacks, 2 out of a case of 12 were "Stealth", having the same deco applied but all plastic body parts were uncolored translucent plastic. Hasbro's last release was the lonely Ironhide (aka Trailbreaker going by the deco), lonely since he was released without any of his gang-molded buddies(blank spots for all), but was packed with a redeco of the RID Ultra Magnus spychanger.

I think after all those releases the molds were physically "done", I think there was word time Takara recalled the blindpacked Super/Stealth spychangers, though obviously some got released, but the molds were in effect "retired". There had also been rumors/"leaks" of a Stunticon-named set of Spychangers Hasbro had planned to release but that never happened, wasn't confirmed they would have use any of these original molds. Also unreleased was a redeco of Gearhead in G2, would've been named Greasepit and packed in with a transforming truck/playset.

 

Very cool @Edgewise , I think I've got most of the RiD'01 and beyond domestic releases, but never went after the Takara ones, that Jusco Mirage is kinda stunning and the Stealth ones are really cool.

What was the hardest one to track down?

 

Hardest to track down... well...

Probably Takara G2 Optimus Prime... saw more Megatrons and Soundwaves(more Prime-specific collectors out there that needed to get just that one?), though still not often. I finally broke down and actually opened a carded one. Got it for an expensive price but cheaper than I saw an opened one.

Nightracer I still don't have, and pretty rare to come across, but also easily available right now on ebay for $1400, I'm just not paying that. About a year ago I came close to buying one for about $1,000, but I was buying a house at the time and it would've been fine financially but still didn't seem to be a prudent purchase at the time.

I had been worried about completing the Jusco set, but I saw a complete set at Botcon 2010 and jumped on that. $180 for the set seemed expensive at the time, but having the whole set complete was worth it.

Then the Chase figures... Chase Stealth Eaglekiller I came across a preponderance of. I had bought a few cases to try to get all the chases but got him in everyone and he seemed common on the secondary market. I forget which one it was I had the hardest time getting, I think maybe it was X-car, any way it took awhile to complete the chase set.

 

If you don't love yourself, then nobody will.

 

Probably my favorite deco on these lads. That being said, the robot modes seemed a little too plain for my tastes. Decided to throw on a few G1 Combaticon stickers on a whim and…



I'm sure this is sacrilege to someone out there, but I kinda dig it?

 

I think that looks really cool.

 

It looks good, but I don’t think I could bring myself to cover up the gorgeous deco on those guys. Though I think I did use it as my Bruticus stand-in for a while (since I already had Japanese and domestic releases of Ruination.)

 

Finally, after years, I may have secured myself a complete JRX in box. After that I just need Landfill and Ruination and my RID collection will be complete. (still unsure if I want the OG Baldigus or the UW version, but the latter is fucking expensive and impossible to find at time)

 

Was lucky to get the bullet trains when the show was airing. Crazy to see how pricey they are nowadays.

 

Railspike

 

I got them summer of 2000 from Japan in a box set. I would love if they made a new version for legacy.

 

Nice. So did I. Still sealed in box. I have the hasbro versions opened.