Joining the ranks of classic Autobots like Jazz and Ratchet in the upcoming fifth issue of the series will be Drift, a brand new character who holds the distinction of being the very first Transformers character ever to make the jump from the comic page to the toy aisle, a distinction that had McCarthy "pretty chuffed to say the least."
Not true. Titanium Series did give us several toys of characters that originated from comics (i.e.: War Within) and we've seen other 'mainstream' toys that have been influenced by comic designs, e.g.: Galaxy Force/Cybertron Optimus Prime & Starscream (obviously influenced by War Within Prime and Starscream).

Having said that, I find Titanium Series to be appallingly crap TF action figures (underwhelming engineering and poor playability) and it wasn't marketed as part of the "mainstream line" of Transformers (more of a sub-line), so Drift may be the first comic-book character to be realised as a proper 'mainstream' TF action figure if it's released say in the Universe line.

I initially thought Classics Jetfire was based on IDW Jetfire because the design did appear in the comics before the toy came out, but of course we all know that in reality it was because IDW had received images of the Classics Jetfire toy in advance so that they were able to insert him into the comics before the toy came out. It was conceived as a toy first.

So while I enjoy Titanium Series as display items, if Drift turns out to be an actual toy that I can play with then yeah... I'd be chuffed! Let's hope he's not undone by poor QC... (-_-)