The Energon Pub

I was just looking at an old promotional image of some G1 Toys and noticed that Inferno and Grapple seem to share the same mold. There are some slight differences to the mold to change him from a fire truck to a crane (or vice versa depending on which came first.) but that's it.

And it occurs to me that Energon Roadblock was remolded from Energon Inferno in the same way. However Roadblock isn't exactly the same coloring as Grapple, just the same vehicle.

Still, do you think that G1 Grapple inspired the creation of Energon Roadblock?

Yes.

Yes.

And Hasbro intended for Roadblock to be a completely different character........but Takara chose otherwise and made him an upgrade on Inferno.

Its also my understanding that Hasbro wanted to name him "Grapple" but werent allowed due to the current trademark laws.And they had used the "Pre-fix" loop hole early that year on the G1 Grapple reissue so they ended up choosing the name Roadblock.

I think Roadblock looks very like the miners in Megatron:Origin.