I started a thread like this a few years ago, but I think I never got a solid answer. The G2 Go-Bots (and, by extension, the RID Spychangers) were gang-molded. That means for every Firecracker car shell and gun produced, you also get Gearhead's feet and Motormouth's head and legs. There were three waves of G2 Go-Bots. The second one replaced Firecracker with Optimus Prime and Blowout with Megatron and had "solid" parts variants for Gearhead and Motormouth (corresponding with the changes from Firecracker's clear red to Optimus Prime's solid red, and from Blowout's clear gray to Megatron solid gray/silver). The third wave featured redecos (and new characters) for all six toys. But there were four production runs. The fourth one gave us the three Japanese Go-Bots Optimus Prime, Megatron and Soundwave. Because of the gang-molding, Soundwave (a wave 3 toy in the USA) had red feet in Japan (from Optimus Prime's car shell) instead of the US version's blue feet (from Sideswipe's car shell). In return, Japanese Optimus Prime's legs were a more lime-ish yellow (from Soundwaves car shell), as compared to the US version's more "standard" yellow (from Gearhead's car shell). Likewise, Japanese Soundwave's head and legs were now silver (from Megatron's car shell) as compared to US Soundwave's purple head and legs (from Frenzy's car shell). Now, that makes three toys.. but the G2 Go-Bots gang-molding process would result in a set of six toys. That leaves three toys unaccounted for. And this is where BotCon Nightracer comes into play. My theory is that she is essentially made up of "spare parts" from the same production run as the Japanese Go-Bots. Can anyone help me confirm this? Anyone who owns both Nightracer and the Japanese Go-Bots, I need a comparison of the plastic colors of: Soundwave's car shell Optimus Prime's feet Nightracer's legs, head and gun. I need to know if the lime-ish yellow is the ecaxt same color. Not "almost the same", but "exactly the same" as in "same production run". Here are photo comparisons of the molds. Numbers indicate plastic colors.
I know it's been 13 years, but since the images from the first post are dead, I've done a modern comparison. Hasbro G2 Go-Bots wave 1: Hasbro G2 Go-Bots wave 2: Firecracker and Blowout with their car shells made out of clear plastic have been replaced by "Optimus Prime" and "Megatron", who have car shells made out of opaque plastic. At the same time, Gearhead and Motormouth's formerly clear robot parts have been replaced by opaque plastic because they're gang-molded with Firecracker/Optimus Prime and Blowout/Megatron. (In Europe, Optimus Prime and Megatron weren't sold under those names, but instead as color variants of Firecracker and Blowout. >More details here.<) Hasbro G2 Go-Bots wave 3: All the figures have been redecoed. The orange-ish yellow plastic used by Optimus Prime, Gearhead and High Beam has been replaced by the lime yellow color used by Sideswipe, Soundwave and Bumblebee. And then there are the Japanese versions of Optimus Prime, Soundwave and Megatron... and BotCon Nightracer. Megatron is mostly identical to the Hasbro version. The only difference is that the tampographed "Transformers"-"T" logo from Hasbro Soundwave's chest/car hood has now been applied to Megatron as well. Optimus Prime combines the red car shell of Hasbro Optimus Prime with the lime yellow robot parts of Hasbro Sideswipe (which are gang-molded with with Soundwave's car shell), and once again adds the "Transformers"-"T" logo from Hasbro Soundwave's chest/car hood to Optimus as well. Soundwave combines lime yellow car shell of Hasbro Soundwave with the red and gray robot parts of Hasbro Gearhead (which are gang-molded with with Optimus Prime and Megatron's car shells, respectively). This production run would have inevitably left lime yellow robot parts like those used for Hasbro Bumblebee. The various versions of Car Robots Artfire and X-Car aka 2001 Robots in Disguise Hot Shot and Crosswise further confirm that Blowout/Megatron/Frenzy's black robot parts are gang-molded with High Beam/Bumblebee's car shell, which means that the production run of Takara Optimus Prime, Soundwave and Megatron would have inevitably created all the parts needed to assemble a complete Nightracer as a byproduct! Additionally, the wheels are the wrong set for the High Beam/Bumblebee sculpt, as they belong to the Double Clutch/Mirage sculpt. I assume all 24 wheels for the six figures are gang-molded, since there are "variants" or error versions of the Hasbro Go-Bots that have the wrong sets of wheels as well. And then there is Raksha's own account of how Nightracer came to be, and her correspondence with Hasbro: BotCon '95 - Raksha (convention organizer) I assume this was a case of poor communication on behalf of Hasbro, and a heavily biased interpretation on behalf of Raksha. Hasbro didn't mean to imply they were incapable of producing the toy in a different color - they meant that the toy had already been produced in those colors (because it was gang-molded with Takara Soundwave and Optimus Prime), and thus they now couldn't change the plastic colors of the existing production run anymore. Also, WhizBang Toys was later offered additional stock of the Nightracer figure for its 1996 FX convention, though lacking the paint operations that had been applied by hand by Raksha. Presumably, this was additional stock from the production run of the Japanese Go-Bots. As an aside, the cross-sell featured on the back of the Japanese Go-Bots features a regular Hasbro Soundwave, and Hasbro Sideswipe and Frenzy with hand-painted car shells.
fucking christ the absolute commitment here is insane, this was a super weird, but wonderful little story for me to go through. I love reading random stuff like this, and theorising what else like this could be out there!
I love this! Seeing all the G2 Go-Bots, they really are lovely little things. High Beam really stands out.
Not weird. The G2 Go-Bot was the first toy ever that was officially released under the name "Optimus Prime" in Japan.
