Death's Head
04-09-11, 09:24 PM
Trailbreaker is perhaps one of my favourites of the original slew of Autobot cars released in 1984. The poor guy barely featured in the comic and despite a starring role in the opening episodes of the cartoon, he quickly faded into obscurity. Not helped by the fact that just no one seemed to own him as a kid. He just wasn’t as sexy as some of the other figures, and his mould sharing brother, Hoist, always seemed slightly more interesting. I'll apologise in advance for the slightly weak photography here -and for the state of my beloved Trailbreaker. He's a little tatty around the edges.
In vehicle mode, he is a chunky, boxy 4x4 vehicle and looks lovely. The big wheels, rich, glossy black paint, shiny chrome grill and blue windows make him look cool. Okay, you can imagine that in an urban environment, he’s likely to become little more than a Chelsea Tractor, but I can picture him bouncing through a muddy forest or roaming along some desert scrubland, like you see in those over dramatic Land Rover adverts. The use of stickers for door windows does spoil the look somewhat, but he’s still a great looking vehicle.
He has a nice sequence of moves to get to robot mode. The legs drop down and swing around in front of the bonnet/grill and lock into place. The sides of the vehicle snap outwards and rotate upright to reveal the arms and the rear section moves through a series of nips and tucks to get the head in position and the canopy forms a kind of back pack. Once in robot mode, he’s a sturdy, portly fellow and has a serious array of gadgets and weaponry. Behind his head sits his force field projector, his backpack has two grooves that can store his wrist mounted missiles and he can also switch his fists for two double-barrelled things which can also be launched from his wrist sockets. He doesn’t really have much movement beyond a considerable degree of rotation in the arms, but thats par for the course with Transformers of this era.
I think what I like most about Trailbreaker is that his overall layout seems to recall those mad looking tin robots of the 1950s. He has a blocky, inhuman head and looks like Robby The Robot’s cousin. The simple red/black/blue/silver colour scheme is superb (something the Encore version has got wrong by changing the visor to blue to match the animation model – cheers for that) and he just looks brutal. I love him, and so should you!
640641
In vehicle mode, he is a chunky, boxy 4x4 vehicle and looks lovely. The big wheels, rich, glossy black paint, shiny chrome grill and blue windows make him look cool. Okay, you can imagine that in an urban environment, he’s likely to become little more than a Chelsea Tractor, but I can picture him bouncing through a muddy forest or roaming along some desert scrubland, like you see in those over dramatic Land Rover adverts. The use of stickers for door windows does spoil the look somewhat, but he’s still a great looking vehicle.
He has a nice sequence of moves to get to robot mode. The legs drop down and swing around in front of the bonnet/grill and lock into place. The sides of the vehicle snap outwards and rotate upright to reveal the arms and the rear section moves through a series of nips and tucks to get the head in position and the canopy forms a kind of back pack. Once in robot mode, he’s a sturdy, portly fellow and has a serious array of gadgets and weaponry. Behind his head sits his force field projector, his backpack has two grooves that can store his wrist mounted missiles and he can also switch his fists for two double-barrelled things which can also be launched from his wrist sockets. He doesn’t really have much movement beyond a considerable degree of rotation in the arms, but thats par for the course with Transformers of this era.
I think what I like most about Trailbreaker is that his overall layout seems to recall those mad looking tin robots of the 1950s. He has a blocky, inhuman head and looks like Robby The Robot’s cousin. The simple red/black/blue/silver colour scheme is superb (something the Encore version has got wrong by changing the visor to blue to match the animation model – cheers for that) and he just looks brutal. I love him, and so should you!
640641