Toy Review - Velocitron Crasher (Legacy)

[KELPIE]

Looking forward to grabbing it, however I still reckon we'd be better served getting a Backstreet or Tailspin and have them repurposed for Crasher.

[GoktimusPrime]

Story time...

For those of you who may be too young to remember, the character that we now know as Fracture^Crasher was originally known as Porsche Man in Bandai's 1983 Machine Men toyline. Crasher was an Enemy Robot who was initially released in white. There's also a very rare silver mail-away exclusive variant, of which apparently only 6k were ever made. In 1984, Bandai Australia aligned the names of the Machine Men with their North American Gobots names, thus the 1984 release of Porsche Man was called "Crasher." Crasher was available in both white and black variants, although it was the black variant that became prominent in Gobots media (e.g. cartoon etc.). Machine Men ended after 1987, and in 1991 Tonka was acquired by Hasbro, blah blah blah you all know the rest of the story.

Robot mode


Car mode


As they were originally known as in Australia: Semi-Trailer Man, Bug Bite & Porsche Man


Crasher's electro-stomp


Melee fight


BLOOOOOSH


Thoughts
As a mostly repaint of Kingdom Mirage, Crasher inherits the same issue of the missile launcher being incapable of attaching to the shoulder. This isn't as much of an issue with Crasher since the original Machine Men character never had a launcher anyway. The G1-accurate Electro Disrupter Mirage head looks kinda weird on Crasher; I would've preferred the regular Mirage head myself. Interestingly enough, this toy uses the silver Bayformers Decepticon logo instead of a purple G1 Decepticon logo; obviously a reference to the 2008 Fracture toy which, even though it was a repaint of Classics Mirage, was sold under the Bayformers toyline.

Looking forward to grabbing it, however I still reckon we'd be better served getting a Backstreet or Tailspin and have them repurposed for Crasher.

Hasbro could make a closer Porsche approximation, as they did with Studio Series 86 Jazz. And this would be fine for Backstreet or Tailspin (although I'd prefer the latter to be a Micromaster), but it could create legal issues for Crasher. Although Hasbro has no issues with using the Machine Men names and characters, TakaraTOMY would, because Machine Robo; the toyline that was predominantly used to create the Machine Men/Gobots, is still owned by Bandai Japan, TakaraTOMY's rival. This is why the eHobby "G1 Gobots" box set had no individual character names on the box, instructions or tech specs bio; it was only published on eHobby's website. Legacy Crasher has elements from both Porsche Man and 2008 Fracture (such as the aforementioned silver insignia); most likely as a way to further insulate TakaraTOMY from potential litigation. Bandai Japan has never even owned the rights to the Gobot names, but Takara chose to err on the side of caution by not publishing them. This toy was originally called Porsche Robo in Japan (by Popy, which was owned by Bandai JP).

This may also be why most of the other Transformers GoBots don't sport their Machine Men colours.
+ Road Ranger is black and orange instead of blue and red; Bug Bite is white instead of yellow (although that does help differentiate him from Bumblebee - notice that Gens Selects Bug Bite isn't a VW)
+ Smallfoot is yellow and red instead of red and blue
+ Pathfinder is blue and yellow instead of dark grey and silver (although these were also Cosmos' prototype colours)
+ Bad Boy is also in Powerglide's prototype grey but with the dark green replaced with blue instead of the dark green on the original Machine Men toy
+ Treds is the only TF Gobot who has similar colours to his Gobots counterpart; dark green instead of light green. Although this was Warpath's prototype colours. It may also help that Gobots Treds is an M1 Abrams tank, whereas eHobby Treds is, like Warpath, a M551A1 Sheridan ARAAV tank.
I'm just speculating here TBH, but the more different HasTak can make their Gobots from the originals, then the better protected TakaraTOMY is from being legally vulnerable to Bandai.

As far as I can tell, not even Action Toys were able to make a new Porsche Robo toy in their 2016 licensed Machine Robo Revenge of Cronos action figure line. Most likely because Porsche refuses to allow their vehicles to be licensed to any property affiliated with war. But I suspect that Bandai JP still owns the rights to the original Porsche Robo design and likeness, even if they can't make new product from it.



Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of Machine Men/Gobots/Machine Robo, nor an expert on IP laws, so please do correct me if I'm wrong.

[KELPIE]

Yeah it's a weird scenario, Hasbro/TakaraTOMY need to be careful with the toy/media likeness of Machine Robo and Bandai need to be careful of any likeness or names of Gobots/Machine Men media.

I'm actually surprised we didn't get a Crasher out of PoP Jazz.