Wow, this sure must've been super unpopular because I found them on clearance in store and I never find anything besides leftovers. From one critical collector to another, I would say the QC complaints are overblown. The plastic is fine, no rough edges (but a few rough surfaces), paint and chrome are good. They're tighter than my G2s were off the card. The only issue I ran into was in some cases they may be a little too tight. That was mostly connecting Scrapper and Mixmaster to the thigh connector. They like to pop off if they're not aligned just right. Missing the second drill is a bummer, and it would've been nice to have "Tonka" printed on both sides of Hook's crane, but I'm really reaching at that point. Considering I paid $30 30 years ago, I didn't find the original asking price too out of whack, but $50 on discount was fair in my opinion.
It's a fun piece and I would recommend it but yeah, I just set it up next to my g1 device and forgot about it
Maybe a more exciting color scheme (and one not so similar to the G2 yellow ones, which are still fairly easy to get) would have sold better. I like Tonkanator, but I have to admit it's kinda plain. Not sure if Tonka is very well known outside of the US, either. A homage to one of the Diaclone color schemes would be my preferred choice, either as new characters, Autobot versions of the Constructicons, or another SG color scheme.
Even better, use the same mold for both sets, driving multiple sales of units to collectors due to the two different Diaclone sets.
This was a target exclusive with limited availability from hasbro pulse. It may be available to other countries via hasbro? PO’ed at $100+, then returned and got it for $80 with coupon. Then returned again for $80 for 2 sets.
Ordered! Thank you! I never have any G1 combiners! Okay technically this isn't either, but I'm sure you get what I mean.
Well, if you end up liking this guy, keep in mind that the other G1 combiners are even sturdier. And, I’ve been hearing good things about this guy.
Yellow is one of the most boring colors to give to a construction team, in my opinion. (RID Heavy Load is one of the few who makes it work, but it helps that he has grey and black to break it up and that the rest of his team isn’t yellow like him usually. Yes, I know about yellow RID Landfill. Nice idea, boring execution.) If Tonkanator had a different color scheme (for example, Diaclone or SG, like you said) and redecoed from CW Devastator instead of the original toy, I’d have been more interested. (It also might have been cheaper, since Hasbro tends to ridiculously inflate the prices for their G1 reissues.)
