As per TFW, A company called Cubex announced they are doing a 3rd party MP Huffer.
And not to be outdone, a few hours later X-Transbots announced their version of MP Huffer (and Pipes)
And for comparison, here is G1 Huffer:
There has been no word on pricing or release date yet. But it has been said that BOTH will be able to hook up to MP-10's trailer.
My thoughts:
-The Cubex one does a much better job of invoking G1 cartoon Huffer (but still isn't perfect). The transformation seems more MP style with the rear wheels moving into the legs. Where as the XTB one has the rear wheels just sitting on the legs (Similar to MP-10 vs MP-01/04). The CUbex Huffer also has the more cartoon accurate head and face sculpt.
-The XTB alt mode looks awesome. It actually looks like an official truck, where as the Cubex one more resembles the mini-bot themed toy truck.
-It will be interesting to see how they handle the weight distribution. The truck cab sitting on the back will naturally make him want to topple backwards.
- I don't know how this will pay off the companies. With the way the MP line is moving at the moment, it may not be long until an official MP Huffer is announced (another year or 2). A lot of people may just wait for this instead.
I think if I dip into these myself, I may end up going with Cubex for Huffer due to that one being more cartoon accurate and the XTB one for Pipes as I really like the alt mode from what I have seen so far. However I think I'll be waiting on reviews and pricing either way first. And these are just prototypes. Things can (and have) changed a lot between prototype and final release.![]()