There's not really much known about them before they were Transformers. And just finding out that they weren't new to Transformers was news to me.
The best info I could find out about them, as to where they were from originally,
was this review here.
It mentions that they were from a line called Mecha Warrior, and released in red and blue (hasbro did blue, yellow and white).
I couldn't find anything online about that line though... so info on when and how they were released is still a mystery.
Even
the tfwiki has no info on them, and that's usually a good place to start.
Other dedicated
pre-TFs sites had nothing as well. And since it is so long ago, it's unlikely anyone at Hasbro would know anymore.