Transformers 3rd Party: Impossible Toys - Bump MC-03

Earlier this year the Transformers fandom said goodbye to one of the earliest companies in the 3rd party community, Impossible Toys.  I don't think many people however shed a tear when the announcement was made due to the quality and execution of some of their products.  In my experience with the company their products were hit or miss.  The Tetra Squadron jets they did were a miss (at least for me), but their Quintesson figures were really good.  Impossible Toys' swan song was a set of Mini-Bots.  The release of these seemed to fly underneath the radar and it wasn't long before I saw many of them sold out or on clearance at different online retailers.  I happened to pick up one on clearance myself just so I could experience it first hand.  So did Impossible Toys pull off a modern articulated G1 Minibot?  Read on.

My choices of which Minicar to purchase were limited, so I went with Bump.  He obviously is Bumper from G1, one of the few G1 toys I've yet to acquire.  The packaging has that G1 feel to it, from the red, grid line background and the iconic Transformers font from the 80's.  The quality of the box is on the cheap side, but then again all of their packaging is printed on flimsy, thin cardboard.  Look at the image below and you can see a crease in the top right corner of the box from shipping.

Overall the packaging presentation is some of their best to date.  Product images on all sides and even a new bio of sorts on the back.  No awards are needed here, but a suitable job none the less.

Impossible Toys molded plastic trays with removable lids to house each Minicar inside the box.  This is the only thing that really holds the outer box intact.  I was surprised when I slid out the tray to see a tiny gun packaged with the toy!  Bonus points for this addition.

  

Out of the package the first thing I noticed was it's size.  These IT Minicars are much larger than what I had expected.  I'd say they are a chunky basic/scout size if I'm using modern toy terminology.  Bump retains his G1 look, from his blocky angles and rubber tires.  I will point out that gap you see in the front does disappear when you press in his legs.  My one complaint with vehicle mode is the exposed screw in the back.  He sorely needs a sticker to cover this up.  I may slap an Autobot symbol on there as I would be surprised if Reprolabels.com ever releases any sort of update set of stickers for these releases.

Transformation is pretty much the exact same as the G1 toy.  Flip up the head, pull down the legs and flip out the feet.  When you go to pull out the arms however, you'll notice they lift up as they now use a ball and socket joint.  While the transformation is close to the same, articulation is not.  IT did a good job giving these guys a few extra points of articulation that their G1 selves lacked.

Can your G1 Minibot pull off poses like this?

I found this to be a fun little toy to mess with.  Plastic quality seems to have been improved as it doesn't feel cheap or lightweight in hand.  You've got the look of a G1 toy with updated modern action figure articulation.  Throw in a great headsculpt a little hand gun and you've got a winning package.  I can't remember what these retailed for originally, but I only paid 15 bucks and at the price point it's pretty hard to pass up.  Check out BBTS to see what they still have left in stock if you are interested.

Now what kind of review would this be without comparison pics?  Now remember I don't own a G1 Bumper, so I grabbed my Takara TF Collection reissue of Bumblebee for the obligatory comparison shots.

Please comment a I'd love to hear your experiences with Impossible Toys in general or just your comments about Bump or any of their other Minicars in the series.