The unreleased 1984 Decepticons

[Paulbot]

What if...

With the recent reveal of the new Masterpiece Exhaust toy it's time to remember a long lost piece of Transformer history that many new fans might be unaware of.

Back in early 1984 while the Transformers line was being put together as a combination of Microman and Diaclone toys, the executives at Hasbro noted the unexpected success of the Go-Bots toy line launch by Tonka. With a cartoon and comic launch to come, and increasing demand from retailers after their showing at the 1984 Toy Fair, the company looked for ways to quickly get more toys on the shelves.

It was decided that a second set of releases would be rushed into production to follow the launch assortment, ahead of a full 1985 line should the line prove extremely successful. The toys would include additional Diaclone moulds and/or decos that had not yet been used. In an effort to even out the numbers between the good robots and the bad robots, the new figures would also be Decepticons.

Thus the Decepticon Cars line up was born. The Decepticon Cars would give retailers additional toys at the attractive $10 price point. Unlike the bright colours of the Autobots, these Decepticon cars would be primarily darker tones.

As a gimmick, and to acknowledge that all the other Automobiles were the good guys, the new Decepticons were to feature a new heat-based sticker. The sticker would replace the regular insignia and when rubbed would reveal that the car was a Decepticon. (This feature was of course implemented with the Mini-Spy promotion and, later, across the whole line.)

The infamous rubsign was to be introduced with the Decepticon Cars

Until 2010 the existence of the Decepticon Cars was unknown to the Transformers fandom. It wasn't until in 2010 when materials from a Hasbro Briefing Binder were auctioned off by Ron Friedman that details of the toys came to light. Further information has been slowly pieced together by dedicated fans since.

Exhaust is the first of the Decepticon Cars to be released

According to a page in the briefing binder, the Decepticon Cars line up would have been a case assortment of 12, with two each of:

• #5771 Barricade – No.19 New Countach Police Car (black and white police car version of Sideswipe/Red Alert)
• #5772 Ignition – No.21 Corvette Stingray (red version of Tracks now known as Road Rage)
• #5773 Exhaust – No.18 Lancia Stratos Turbo remold (previously best known as the Marlboor Wheeljack)
• #5774 Guzzle – No. 2 Onebox Cherry Vanette (black Ironhide)
• #5775 Oilchange – No. 7 Fairlady Z (blue Bluestreak)
• #5776 Breakdown – No. 8 4WD Wrecker Type (blue version of Hoist)

What might have been

The listing of the assortment is stamped as “Cancelled and unreleased” in the document. In their place Red Alert, Hoist and Tracks were released in 1985 in their familiar colour schemes, along with Grapple, Inferno, Smokescreen and Skids.

This cancellation may have been quite late, as one of the Decepticon Cars, Ignition, was still included on the 1985 back of box art, seen fighting Grimlock and Jetfire. (Fans had always assumed this was an art mistake.) However no known boxed examples of these characters have been seen.

Ignition featured on the 1985 box art

To this day, most fans are unaware of the proposed Decepticon Cars assortment. With the release of a Masterpiece Exhaust this should change. It may be in the Masterpiece line that all the Decepticon Cars finally end up on collector's shelves.

Other trivia:

• It wasn't until 2007 that the name Barricade was used for a Decepticon police car.
• Guzzle was originally a name for Trailbreaker. There is speculation that Trailbreaker and Guzzle's names may have been swapped and Trailbreaker was originally a Decepticon name.
• The names Guzzle and Breakdown were of course reused for future toys.
• Some Ignition toys were released, as Tracks, in the European market by Milton Bradley.
• Some toys of Oilchange may have been released in Bluestreak packaging but this has yet to be confirmed.
• In an interview with the AllSpark in 2012, Bob Budiansky recalled preparing bios for the Decepticon Cars but it’s not known if any copies still exist.
• It's believed the story of the second season cartoon episode Masquerade was originally intended to be used earlier as a spotlight episode for the Decepticon cars.

Note: The above article is a work of fiction inspired by the Masterpiece Exhaust toy.