Folks, I’ve been a bad MP Transformers collector. After a long run of scarfing up each of the releases, I hit a wall. My last MP purchase was Ironhide, and I reviewed him over two years ago! I love this line, so I could only attribute me falling off by the rising prices. I thought Ironhide was well worth the extra bucks, but $90 for a repaint? That’s considerably more than each of the three Datsuns set me back. And I didn’t want to skip Ratchet and go for Inferno, because that would be cheating. Ultimately, it was a renewed sense of urgency that got me back on track. Ratchet was selling out at a few places, and I worried that if I didn’t buy him now, I’d regret it later. Even better, I sold off a couple of Third-Party Go-Bots that I didn’t need in my collection and that more than paid for him. And so here we go!

It’s been a long time, but the packaging hasn’t changed. Ratchet comes the same kind of collector friendly enclosed box as Ironhide did, which is bigger than the previous MP Autobot cars. You get plenty of pictures of the toy in its various modes, but you don’t get a lot of English copy. All in all, I dig these boxes a lot. They aren’t flashy, but they are classy, and they’re made of heavy stock, so they store well. I actually keep my MP Collection boxed for the time being and they look great all lined up on the shelf.

Inside, the figure and goodies come on clear plastic trays, and it’s easy to see where the extra money went. Not only is Ratchet a big boy, but he comes with a whole bunch of accessories. You also get folded instructions, a character card and a set of stickers with two optional layouts. Yup, stickers! I went with the Autobot crosses because I just think it looked neat, but I’ll come back to the stickers in a bit. Ratchet comes packaged in his alt mode, so let’s start there!

It’s common knowledge that the early 80’s was the pinnacle of Japanese van design and nothing illustrates that better than the Nissan Cherry Vanette. And I’m not ashamed to say that after 35 years, it was only recently that the MP Collection taught me the make and model Ratchet and Ironhide’s alt modes. And yes, in van mode, Ratchet is just a straight recolor of Ironhide with a lightbar added to the top. He’s nearly entirely white, with a red stripe running along each side, blue windows, chromed out bumpers and matte silver wheels. All in all, it’s not a bad looking van, but there are a hell of a lot of seams breaking up the sides.

I’m not a huge fan of the exposed robot face behind the windshield. OK, it’s a cute nod back to the original toy, but probably not one that needed to be so in my face every time I look at it. Also, it serves no purpose at all, which makes me even more sorry that they added it. Does it ruin the van mode? Nah, not really, but it’s worth picking at all the same. You do get a nice Autobot emblem right on the front of the van, and while there are stickers for the auto mode, I’ve chosen to leave them off for now.

Initially, I thought the lightbar would prevent Ratchet from catching a ride in MP Optimus Prime’s trailer, but it’s spring-loaded and you can push it down to roll him inside. It does sometimes get caught when trying to get him out and a few times, I’ve had to pop open the trailer, rather than risk scratching it.

Finally, like Ironhide, there’s a flip up socket on the top of Ratchet’s van mode, which can be used to insert any of the weapons that are designed to be held in his hands. And who doesn’t love a weaponized ambulance, eh?

As expected, the transformation is identical to Ironhide and if you want to share my wonder at experiencing it for the first time then dip back into my Ironhide review. Sadly, the magic is old hat now, but I can still appreciate what Takara’s teams of convertorobot engineers have pulled off here. This shouldn’t work. You shouldn’t be able to get that much robot into that little van. Hell, they couldn’t even come close with the original toy. And yet here it is. Ratchet’s resulting robot mode is almost identical to Ironhide. Takara changed up their pelvic plates, but from the neck down the only other difference is the coloring. And that’s a good thing, because I absolutely loved this robot mode on Ironhide and it looks just as fabulous here on the Autobots’ Chief Medic. From the front, everything looks so impossibly clean and boxy and every other ideal that a G1-designed Transformer should strive to be. The legs are nearly devoid of any van evidence at all and I dig the little armor plates that land on his hips. The front windshield of the van is worn perfectly as the chest, and it impresses me to no end that there aren’t even any wheels visible from the front.

Turn him around and things aren’t quite as polished. There are a lot of exposed screw holes and for the money involved, it would have been cool if Takara had plugged these, or at least offered plugs for us to do it ourselves, like TFC did with their set of Not-Aerialbot figures. You do get a smidgen of van kibble from the back, notably the chrome bumpers on his heels, the windows on the backs of his forearms and his wheel butt… WHEEL BUTT!!! I’ve been in forums where fans complained about this stuff and I was amazed. Hey, complain about whatever you like, that’s your right, but I think this figure is a great achievement of design. He’s also a hefty, solid bot and so much fun to play with!

Obviously we got a brand new head sculpt, and it captures all the character of Ratchet from the Sunbow cartoon. I love the rounded “helmet” and the giant wings over his eyes. The eyes themselves are a bright and beautiful shade of blue, and the rest of the face is finished off in a pleasing matte gray. And if you want to add a little variety to your display options…

He also comes with a second face plate, this time offering a delightful smile. And as long as we’re focusing in on the head and shoulders, I’ll toss out there now that I’m not a big fan of the stickers for the shoulders. To be fair, they look pretty good, and I understand why Takara had to do it. Apparently there were trademark issues concerning the use of the Red Cross. Personally, I would have been fine if they just printed the ones I used on there and been done with it, but I guess some collectors were looking for something more traditional. I just hope they stay on well and don’t yellow over time. But, enough about that… let’s look at some accessories!

Ratchet comes with a boat load of accessories. Or in this case, a sled load. Like Ironhide, Rachet includes a plastic base, which is an homage to the sled that was made up of the bottom part of the original toy’s van mode. This isn’t a direct copy, there’s no treads on the bottom and it isn’t involved at all in the transformation. It is, however, a place to store all those accessories in a way that nods back to the original. For a medic, Ratchet comes with a lot of guns, so let’s start with those first!

A number of the accessories are recycled from Ironhide, the first of which are the twin laser guns. I love these things! They have a nice satin gray finish and fit perfectly into Ratchet’s hands with a tab to secure them into the palms. Getting them out can be a little tricky, but he looks great wielding them.

Next up is what I think is called a Static Laser. It’s instantly recognizable as the gun that was positioned on the front of the original toy’s sled, and I used it to demonstrate the way Ratchet’s mode can be weaponized. It’s got a chrome finish and a white handle. It’s a very distinctive design, but probably not one that I’m going to display him with a whole lot.

Next up is the last recycled accessory from Ironhide ant that’s the missile launcher that plugs into his back. I can remember Ironhide shooting this thing off while flying in the Sunbow cartoon, but I don’t recall Ratchet ever using it. Still, it’s a logical accessory to recycle seeing as a similar piece was included with the G1 vans and I dig it quite a bit. The launcher has a satin gray finish and the missile is chromed out. It can come out of the launcher, but it doesn’t actually fire. Moving on to the new stuff…

Ratchet has one new gun and it’s this little pistol. It’s a cool design, but I really don’t have much else to say about it.

Like Ironhide, Ratchet could retract his hand and deploy various tools. In this case he comes with what is either an arc welder or a cutting torch… or why not both? To attach it you just flip his hand back into his arm and tab it into the spot where the hand used to be. It’s a useful tool for when he needs to do a weld on one of his wounded cameras or cut human survivors out of fallen debris. I don’t know why, but I always loved when the Transformers made use of these types of gizmos.

Ratchet can also produce a repair beam from his forearm. This just plugs right into the peg hole on either of his arms. There’s also an effect part that pegs into the end of the emitter and you get an illustrated cardboard insert that can be slipped in behind the windshield on his chest to produce vital signs. I’ll likely be displaying him with this all the time!

And finally, Ratchet comes with some wrenches, two regular and one magna-wrench.

I collect a lot of toys and other shit, so naturally my budget has its limitations. So throwing $90 at what is mostly a repaint of Ironhide certainly gave me pause. It was my love of Ratchet that finally got me to knuckle down and take the plunge, and I think the fact that it took so long for me to do it worked to my advantage. Two years after getting Ironhide made picking up Ratchet a lot more of a fresh experience and it made me fall in love with this mold all over again. I’m still in awe of how they made this toy work, and it’s a tribute to its intuitive engineering that even after a long while away from this mold, I was able to transform Ratchet without using the instructions. And it makes me happy to finally have the two Autobot vans together at last. If anything, I came away from this review with a renewed passion for the MP line.

I can still remember the crushing disappointment that set in when I got the original Ironhide for my birthday. Sure, I’d seen pictures of him in the catalogs, but something told me that they couldn’t be right. I mean, very few of the G1 Transformers were perfect representations of their Sunbow counterparts, but Ironhide was just plain weird. In his own way, he might have been a cool toy, but my expectations were set and he didn’t live up to them, and so I rarely ever even played with him. The subsequent decades would bring us tons of G1 homages and many of them would be on point, but poor Ironhide never quite got his due. Maybe this was an instance where the magic of animation just couldn’t be translated into a physical toy. The Masterpiece line seemed like our last hope. Thank Primus, it paid off.

This unassuming little box feels right in line with the other MP Autobot cars that have come before it. It’s fully enclosed, features a lot of Japanese text and quite a few pictures of the toy in both forms. As always, this is a licensed product, and holding this box in hand is the first time I’ve actually known the make and model of Ironhide’s official alt mode: A Nissan Cherry Vanette.

Inside the box you get two clear plastic trays containing a hell of a lot more goodies than we’ve seen included with any of the MP Cars. You get Ironhide in his vehicle mode. You get the sled that was part of his G1 toy abomination. And you get a whole slew of extra bits and bobs that make this package feel less like a regular MP Car release and more like a mini MP-10. You also get a folded instruction sheet, an ID card, and an insert for the windshield. There’s a lot to cover here, so let’s get started with the alt mode.

The MP line has been spot on with their alt modes, and Ironhide is no different. This red box on wheels is the perfect homage to the original figure’s auto mode. The red paint looks fantastic, with no discernible slop or QC issues and the simple deco is made complete by the familiar stripes running along the sides of the van. The clear windows are tinted blue with the interior mostly obscured by panels on the other side and the windshield advertising a familiar goofy robot face within.

You get a little chrome on the front and rear bumpers, which look good, but I’ll concede that the bumpers on mine are a little scratched up. There’s an Autobot emblem proudly tampo’ed between the front headlamps and silver painted door handles on the sides. The sculpted windshield wipers, front and back, are painted black and while there are a fair amount of seams on the sides of the vehicle, they don’t look terribly unsightly. I think the only thing missing is a rear license plate, which is oddly enough left empty.

While I’ll get to the accessories in a bit, I will point out here that his Static Laser Rifle can tab into the top of the van, allowing Ironhide to blast some Decepti-creeps while cruising on the highways. Transforming Ironhide is something that needs to be experienced to be truly appreciated. The first time I found it rather intimidating and complex, but the further I went the more delighted with it I became. There’s some amazing stuff going on here, and while changing him felt a lot more involved than any of his predecessors, it doesn’t feel like a chore or something I would dread doing. In fact I only needed the instructions to take me through it the first time and by the second time it already felt natural… And the results are quite astonishing.

Hot Damn is this an amazing figure! To be clear, the sled that comes with Ironhide is a bonus accessory and, while I’ll talk about it in a bit, it has nothing to do with the transformation of the figure. Ironhide’s beautifully proportioned humanoid robot form is all unbelievably contained within that van shell and if they awarded Nobel prizes for engineering cars that change into robots, whoever designed this one would be a sure winner. Not only is everything packed away so brilliantly, but even though Ironhide’s alt mode is in scale with the regular MP cars, his robot mode comes all the way up to MP-10’s shoulders. Impressive!

Nitpickers can have their way with this guy. Feel free. Yeah, he’s got wheel butt. Yeah, he’s got panels on his hips that aren’t supposed to be there. And yes, he has windows on the bottoms of his forearms. I’m happy to point out all the little issues that I’ve heard collectors voice over this guy, because in the grand scheme of things, not one of those things bother me in the slightest. Not only does he look amazing, but his robot mode has all the articulation I could ask for. The shoulders rotate and feature lateral movement. There are swivels in the biceps and wrists, and the elbows are hinged. The hips are ball jointed. The legs feature swivels and hinges in the knees, and some great lateral rockers and hinges in the ankles. He can pivot at the waist and his neck is ball jointed. He even has a pair of hinged flaps in his pelvis to accommodate the hip movement.

And look at that mug! That’s the G1 Ironhide that I know and love. The paint on the face is immaculate, as are the blue eyes. He’s got his familiar “helmet” with the mohawk crest, and by pressing the back of the crest and popping off the face, you can do a quick swap to his alternate portrait.

Shouty Ironhide! Swapping face plates is nothing new for the Masterpiece line, but Ironhide’s faces are so easy to swap out, I may actually do it from time to time. I love this face. It looks like he just walked in on Prime during his special alone time.

The sled is a nifty throwback to a figure best forgotten. It doesn’t actually have any treads on the bottom. It’s just a piece of plastic that’s useful for holding all of Irionhide’s accessories if you want easy access to them on the shelf, rather than keeping them in the box. It’s going to take me long enough to get through all the extra bits, so I’m not going to dwell on the sled itself any longer. Let’s start with the hand replacements…

In the Sunbow cartoon, Ironhide had a lot of tricks up his sleeves. Literally. He had more retractable gadgets than any other Autobot I can think of. Now I’ll be honest, I could quote a lot of the cartoon from memory and I still bust out my DVDs rather frequently, but I can’t remember which hand gizmos did what. I do know he could shoot all sorts of fluids, including liquid nitrogen from these various pieces. Anyway, you get a pair of what look like hands, but they have nozzles in the fingers, you get a pair of circular red shooters, and a pair of rectangular gray ones. All of these are attached by folding Ironhide’s hands back into his arms and pegging the pieces onto the stumps. These are neat extras, but I’m not sure I’ll get much use out of them.

Next up, you get his Sonadar dish. It attaches to the socket in either of his forearms. In the cartoon he used this to see through rock and Ironhide comes with a cardboard insert for his chest to recreate the scene quite nicely. Now, these I dig a lot!

Ironhide also comes with a nice piece of artillery for his back. Again, this is one of his gadgets seen in the cartoon. It’s perfect for blasting Decepticon Seeker Jets out of the sky.

And lastly, before we get to the guns, Ironhide includes his jetpack and effect parts. The jetpack features a nice satin silver finish and it’s unobtrusive enough that I just might leave it on him all the time. The effect parts are pretty neat, but as y’all probably know by now, I’m not a big fan of effect parts. They’ll likely stay in the box or on the sled, or wherever.

And that brings us to the guns. Ironhide comes with his Static Laser Rifle, which is an homage to the original G1 toy. It’s the gun that was positioned in the front of his sled. This piece has a shiny chrome finish and can be held in either hand securely thanks to a tab on the grip and slot in the hands.

Finally, you get a pair of pistols. These have the same satin finish as the jetpack and like the Static Rifle, they have tabs to help him hold them securely. My guess is that I’m going to go with these babies most of the time for display. Or maybe just one.

It’s no revelation that the Masterpiece line has been an absolute delight. When fans are nitpicking a solid figure like Tracks, you know we’re getting spoiled. But with all that having been said, Ironhide feels like a whole new level. A lot of that has to do with how much Takara packed into this box, but it also has to do with the brilliant sorcery that makes up this toy’s engineering. The transformation feels nothing short of miraculous and the robot mode is rock solid and so very hard to put down. It’ll probably be a couple of weeks before Ironhide joins my Masterpiece shelves, because I’m going to want him on my desk and within reach. Do I even have to say how excited I am to get my hands on Ratchet?

And now on a more somber note, I’m going to be retiring Transformers Thursday for the remainder of March because I’m in a holding pattern with buying new Transformers right now. I’m passing on the current Autobot combiner limbs that are clogging the pegs and I’m also passing on the Hasbro Combaticons and waiting for the Takara versions. I am still hunting Sky Lynx and Leader Class Skywarp, and I will be picking up the G2 versions of Superion and Menasor in the weeks ahead. For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be using Thursdays as a regular rotation to get caught up on other stuff. That having been said Transformers Thursdays will return next month with plenty of new goodies!

I’ve been pretty quiet on the Transformers Masterpiece front, but that’s more Takara’s fault than mine. There were only a handful of releases over the past year and a lot of them were Diaclone homages, which I would have been all over if it weren’t for the fact that I collect so many other things and I’m not made of money. Case in point, the last MP Transformer I looked at was MP-22 Ultra Magnus and that was almost exactly a year ago today. So, let’s break this long hiatus and take a look at MP-25… Tracks!

We’ve certainly seen this packaging before. Tracks comes in an enclosed box that matches the other MP Autobot cars. A lot of the copy is in Japanese, but there’s a little English to be had. There are plenty of pictures of the toy in its various modes and the front boasts that it is an official licensed Chevrolet product. These boxes aren’t terribly flashy, but they are collector friendly and they sure look great all lined up in a bookcase. Inside, you get a folded color instruction sheet, a profile card, and a bunch of neat extras. Tracks wasn’t a member of the Autobot “Class of 84” and I never actually owned his figure as a kid, but I enjoyed him a lot on the cartoon and the only reason it took me this long to pick him up was because he hasn’t been very well received. Let’s start with the alt mode…

Faithful to his G1 roots, Tracks is a Chevy Corvette Stingray. I’ll be honest, I’m a Ford guy… Mustangs in particular, but if I ever loved a Chevy it was this lovely Corvette design. Tracks’ vehicle mode lives up to all my expectations, but then I never doubted it would. Apart from a seam here and there, the MP line hasn’t had any issues with it’s auto modes. He sports a gorgeous metallic blue paint job, which is absolutely flawless! We’ve come a long way from the paint QC issues on the original figures. The colorful tampo on the hood looks amazing and you even get a flip-panel on the roof, like we saw with Bumblebee, which allows you to display him with or without the extra Autobot symbol in his vehicle mode. I prefer it without. There is a fair amount of kibble showing through underneath, but that’s understandable because he’s got a lot going on under there. Also, it surprisingly doesn’t interfere with his ground clearance at all, allowing him to roll smoothly.  The only glaring issue I have with this alt mode are the mirrors. Takara includes two sets of rear view mirrors on sprues. Yeah, we’ve seen this before, but in this case, they don’t want to stay in very well. I actually wind up taking them out when transforming him to avoid losing them. I’m tempted to glue them in, but squirting glue onto Tracks’ paint fills me with dread and I’m sure he wouldn’t appreciate it either.

Tracks features an opening hood, which reveals a detailed engine. It’s a really nice and unexpected feature. I’m pretty sure the Stingray had a reverse hood, but I’m not going to make a big issue about it here. Oh yeah, he also has a second alt mode…

MP Tracks retains the alternate flight mode that was featured on the original toy and in the cartoon. I’m a huge fan of this, mainly because I’ve always had a weird obsession with the idea of flying cars. It’s not a huge difference from his regular car mode. He adds a couple of side pylons with intakes, his back wheels turn upward, sort of like VTOLS, wings fold out from the back and you can clip a gun onto the front of his bumper. Converting him into this mode is a bit more involved then I would like, but it’s hard to argue with the results…

Especially when Takara gave us such an awesome display stand! This snazzy black stand features a double hinged arm that plugs into the bottom of the vehicle and a silver Autobot emblem on the base. I love that they included something like this. It really feels above and beyond and it turns what could have been just a flippant little secondary alt mode into something that I very well may use as a permanent display option. OK, enough with the alt modes, let’s get this dude transformed…

So, transforming Tracks proved to be a real bitch the first time. He feels a lot more complex than any of the other Autobot cars and some of the movements are a little scary. The tab that holds the halves of the hood together is really tight and pulling that apart makes me nervous every time. Pulling the shoulders away from the body to extend them outward is another step that makes me cringe. There are a ton of moving parts here and sometimes I have to apply a little more force than I’m comfortable with. I also worry about paint scraping. A lot of those beautiful blue plates slide against each other and I don’t want the finish to be ruined. With all that having been said, I thought putting him back into auto mode would be a nightmare, but it went more smoothly than I expected.

With all that having been said, I generally dig Tracks’ robot mode, but it isn’t the slam dunk that I felt we got with the Datsuns or Lambor. There’s no doubt about it, this is Tracks and he makes for a damn good idealized version of the original toy design. I think the proportions are overall OK, but there are little things here and there that feel less polished. I’m not a big fan of the construction of the ankles. There’s a little too much gap there when viewed from dead on. There’s a lot of hollow space visible behind his head, which is why most of the official pictures of this guy are taken from a low angle looking up. That’s definitely his best angle. Lastly, he looks pretty rough from the back. I don’t mind the rear of the Corvette as a backpack, it actually pegs in quite nicely, but below that he looks rather unfinished.

The portrait is quite nice, featuring Tracks’ trademark red face and white helmet. Again, great paint here without a flaw to be seen. I also really dig the flip out Autobot symbol on his chest.

In addition to his handgun, Tracks comes with a couple of friends. You get Rauol, Tracks’ human friend. You know, the one he met because he was trying to carjack him. He’s just a static figure on a stand with some very rudimentary paint and an eerie blank face, but a welcome little addition all the same. You also get a tiny little Blaster in his boom box mode. Definitely some cool bonuses.

In no way do I think Tracks is a bad figure, but he does feel a little different from the figures that came before him and not as polishes as some of the better figures in the MP line. A lot of that is no doubt because of a change up in the lead designer, but some of it could also be because of Tracks’ more challenging design. Either way, he’s still going to have a proud place on my Masterpiece shelf and I certainly don’t regret picking him up. For whatever little issues he may have, Takara clearly went above and beyond with the extras on this guy and all that conspires to make him feel like a worthwhile purchase. In fact, to be honest, I’m seriously thinking of picking up the repainted and tweaked mold as Road Rage.