1986 prototypes revealed in catalogue on ebay.

[griffin]

The pre-Toyfair catalogue for 1986 shows off a number of Transformers prototypes, including the combiner groups and city commanders.

The catalogue was on ebay, and now bought by the allspark website, and when they get it, they'll post up decent scans. The auction itself only posted up a sample of small images, which included 3 of Transformers (there might be more TFs pages).

Doesn't look like the allspark page actually posted up copies of the ebay images, so check out the seibertron news post here for those 3 ebay images.

Interesting to note that the Galvatron had to have a yellow barrel, probably for safety laws.

Superion's bits were originally blue (except the feet).

Onslaught has some odd colourings.

And some of the combiner figures appear absent of stickers, which may have been typical of prototypes... or added later as they look a bit bland without them.

Will update when the full scans are posted somewhere.

[Kyle]

Wow, the Superion prototype looked like Ultra Magnus~!

[5FDP]

I actually like that version of Superion.

I can feel a fan repaint coming on Look out for an "unreleased Superion prototype" hitting Ebay soon...

[GoktimusPrime]

Interesting that some of the odd colourings on Onslaught were used later for Dolrailer (Mega-Octane). I prefer the orange on Galvatron's barrel, but I don't know if that's really because it's actually nicer or if it's just because I'm too used to it! Can't... remove... fanboy goggles!!

Superion looks interesting, but too similar to the colours for Ultra Magnus, so I can understand why they changed them. I suspect that for the gestalts, that these might have been their intended Diaclone colours, remembering that these toys were originally cancelled concepts/designs for Diaclone, which Takara dusted off and used for Transformers. And Diaclone Powered Convoy (Ultra Magnus) had entirely different colours - so maybe after they decided on the final colour scheme for Ultra Magnus they then decided to alter the colours for Superion as well.

<shrug> Just completely wild conjecture on my part, but hey - it's fun to guess.

[1AZRAEL1]

Then again, they did use the blue chestplate for G2 Superion. Quite cool to see the prototypes of figures from that time.

[Sky Shadow]

I actually like that version of Superion.

I can feel a fan repaint coming on Look out for an "unreleased Superion prototype" hitting Ebay soon...

Hmm... as Azrael says, with the exception of the head and waistplate, you can pretty much do the blue bits with G2 Superion parts. On a vaguely related note, I have a MOSC G2 Silverbolt who's been itching to join the Vintage Transformer Liberation Thread for some time now. Perhaps his time has come...

[MV75]

Galvatron looks kick arse in those darker shades of grey.

[Robzy]

Agreed! Galvatron's colours are wicked!

[snazzbot 101]

Interesting that some of the odd colourings on Onslaught were used later for Dolrailer (Mega-Octane). I prefer the orange on Galvatron's barrel, but I don't know if that's really because it's actually nicer or if it's just because I'm too used to it! Can't... remove... fanboy goggles!!

True, but I reckon the trans purple barrel would've looked great lit up.

Not so weird: the prototype coloring of Bruticus close to matches his appearance in the Trypticon vs Metroplex box art.

[AussieJason]

Fascinating stuff. I always find it very interesting when G1 info like this surfaces years later.

I wonder when this 1986 catalogue was produced, as wasn't Superion (in the colours we are used to) in the TV show in '85 ?