Apparently Takara was originally planning to release the second year of Minibots (which Hasbro released in 1985 - Beachcomber, Seaspray, Powerglide, Warpath, Cosmos) in different colours... or in their Diaclone "pre-Transformers" line (I'm not sure which is being referred to in the source article).

About 10 years ago when the Minibots were reissued in Japan, Ehobby did a redeco set, which included three of these in those originally planned colours (Powerglide, Cosmos, Warpath)... and an image was released of all five in a group battle scene (but not a clear image though).

Now there are some bigger scans of these images, which shows some wacky colours to these figures. It makes me wonder why they were so significantly recoloured. After all, Hasbro released quite a few figures in identical or similar colours to their Diaclone or Microman versions, so it wasn't done to differentiate their (new) Transformers toys from the originals.