New G1 Ironhde and Ratchet Upgrade kits from Gear4Toys!

@ MiniMagnus

In the G1 cartoon, Ironhide's back was black so the kit makes it sort of accurate. Only wish they ditched the LED to lessen the price.

fenrir72 wrote:@ MiniMagnus

In the G1 cartoon, Ironhide's back was black so the kit makes it sort of accurate. Only wish they ditched the LED to lessen the price.

I had realised that, I just think the black looks a bit weird that's all, red would almost certainly suite the mold better in my opinion.

Wow these are really fantastic!

Rated X wrote:I wonder what possesed the original G1 artists to come up with Ironhide and Ratchets original animated body rather than using his Diaclone robot mode in the cartoons ??? Probally cause it sucked. but then again what was Diaclone thinking when they made this wacky robot mode in the first place ???

I believe the original Diaclone bots came with little figures. Each vehicle was actually a transforming armored suit. In the G1 Ironhide and Ratchet toys, the seat for the little guy can be seen behind the wind shield. Hasbro just put a weird face sticker on the seat to be the robot head. (I think one of the more recent comic incarnations of Ironhide paid tribute by placing Ironhide's windscreen over his face in bot mode.)

I'm actually grateful for the G1 cartoon animators. They took what were pretty cool transforming toys and made them into awesome visual characters. There have been very, very few ugly cartoon models, with the few I can think of being ugly on purpose. It really helped me expand my imagination as a kid.

At any rate, the previous head scheme is all I need for my Ironhide and Ratchet. Still, these look cool and would be grateful if I got them for Christmas or something.

I would be tempted to pick one up for my Ratchet but I just had the visual of placing these brand new, pristine white parts on my 25 year old, purchased second hand, more-than-somewhat-yellowed Ratchet, and it made me shudder. The contrast would be so hideous as to offset any potential coolness gained by the new additions. I very much love the concept but I think I'll stick with hunting down a Classics/Generations version instead.

Agamemnon wrote:

Rated X wrote:I wonder what possesed the original G1 artists to come up with Ironhide and Ratchets original animated body rather than using his Diaclone robot mode in the cartoons ??? Probally cause it sucked. but then again what was Diaclone thinking when they made this wacky robot mode in the first place ???

I believe the original Diaclone bots came with little figures. Each vehicle was actually a transforming armored suit. In the G1 Ironhide and Ratchet toys, the seat for the little guy can be seen behind the wind shield. Hasbro just put a weird face sticker on the seat to be the robot head. (I think one of the more recent comic incarnations of Ironhide paid tribute by placing Ironhide's windscreen over his face in bot mode.)

Yep, they were piloted transforming mecha, originally.

Counterpunch wrote:I might have ordered these, except I strongly agree with an earlier statement saying that these parts should be incorporated into the transformation. That was the beauty of the previous Ironhide and Ratchet heads.

Agreed. These look absolutely amazing (could do without the LED), but it's just not the same if you can't transform it. I WANT to buy these, but can't justify it.

Seeing that I own both the G1 toys, I will stick with just the old head add on. This is just too much. If I wanted to kitbash and make a better Ironhide, I would have. Too much bulk, and gimmicky. Who is the led for anyways? LEDs and shooting missiles are gimmicks for mainly the children that play with transformers. How many "kids" do you know that have G1 Ironhide and Ratchet? Dont get me wrong, it looks good as a concept, but I will not be buying.

A small Fansproject type upgrades for these figures would be nice. Where the new head, arms and leg attachments could transform and replace the back base part completely.

I like them. There were actually 2 previous head attachments for the vans but the second, more popular one is the one we all know that still sells on Ebay, often with the Encores themselves, for quite reasonable prices.

I have both sets myself. It's amazing the difference these sets make. G1/Encore Ironhide is now one of my favourite Transformers. He's got some nice arm articulation despite being an overall brick. If this new set sells reasonably, I'll probably pick it up. Ironhide along with Prowl and Rodimus Prime are my 3 favourite Autobots.

As a 34 old collector, I have to say I like the LED eyes. I also agree with the earlier poster about colour matching these new sets with 25 year old, yellowed toys. I had an old Ratchet but ended up buying an Encore as the yellowing does indeed impact negatively on the overall aesthetic.

Slag it, I wouldn't touch a G1 Ironhide toy until I chanced the head sets to try on my old Ratchet. They really do make a difference. If you're not a fan of the set in this thread, the other one can be gotten very reasonably. It's definitely worth buying one of the upgrades.

On a sidenote, I've even gotten the green and black versions of the previous head set as I fully intend to pick up those vans as well. That black Ironhide will make a nice Motormouth.

MightyMagnus78 wrote:I personally think they look awful. They seem way to top heavy, I can imagine they will full over backwards when you try to display them. I also don't like the way Ironhide's chest is black, I think it would look a hundred times better if it were red.

While this color scheme makes him cartoon-accurate like Ratchet, your all-red-torso idea would be more comic-accurate according to Ironhide's TFU illustration. So while I'm sure a fully transforming upgrade or all new figure accurate to the cartoon will happen someday, if they do a repaint of these molds (and these companies usually do if at all possible) I'd be much more interested. While there may not be as much demand for comic-colors Ironhide, they'd be quite justified in doing a comic accurate Ratchet, since he's one of the few early Autobots whose Marvel persona had 10 times more character and depth than his cartoon counterpart, instead of the other way around. They tried to give his head the red-helmet+white-face-and-boomerang look on his Universe 2.0 SUV toy, but managed to get it backwards, so as far as I'm concerned, Ratchet's proper color scheme has gotten no toy love to this day. I don't have either of their original toys, so I'm tepid about this upgrade too, but do the comic repaints and I'm sold. I

Actually, I'm hoping we someday get a Masterpiece Ironhide that can deploy every pop-out weapon and gadget he ever used in the cartoon. Sculpt a Ratchet head, and they could do almost as many repaints of it as MP Starscream.