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.

Transformers 3rd Party: SXS - Continuously Variable R-01

Let's face it.  There are a TON of 3rd party companies in the market now making add-on sets for Transformers and completely original figures now.  Trying to keep up with all of them can make the most organized person's head spin.

Last year when newcomer Toy World entered the market with their version of Megatron, Hegemon, I and many other collectors were blown away.  The quality of the toy blew my expectations away.  I'm happy to report that I had the same impression with SXS' newest release, Continuously Variable.

Setting aside the very odd name, I wasn't sure what to expect with this release.  After all I had never heard of SXS despite of their previous add on sets, and the announcement / pre-orders went up online after iGear's version of the character Gears.  All that aside once I saw some colored pictures of the near final product I was intrigued.  Thanks to a recent contact on Facebook I was able to grab this new version of Gears for a little less than the typical Transformer online re-sellers.

Since the official name takes me longer to type than the character's name the toy is based on, I'll just refer to the toy as Gears from here on out.  The packaging is a little plain from what I expected.  Toy World used a window box for their version of the Throttlebots so I expected more I guess.  The original art used does a good job capturing the look of the G1 character.  The front and top of the box are identical as you can tell.

Spin the box around and you've got a better look at the toy inside.  Of note SXS made sure to show off the light piping in the robot's head and just how articulated the figure is.

The image on the bottom of the box completely caught me off guard.  The next released planned appears to be none other than Blurr.  Not sure why part of the silhouette has the white area, but I can't wait to see how R-02 looks in finished form.

Gears surprisingly is housed in a form fitting clam shell like tray inside the box.  I like this.  1) it protects the toy very well and 2) it helps give and keep the box's firm shape.  This also makes it very easy to return the toy back to it's packaging to transport or sell later on down the road.

  

Just about every 3rd party company these days includes a trading card style tech spec...and I love this.  The card's front features the same new original art from the box, while the card's back features shots of the toy along with the individual power rankings.

  

I am very happy with the overall look of Gears in vehicle mode.  Granted this version of Gears doesn't look just like his G1 toy, but that's OK since his G1 toy is basically a "super deformed" pick up truck.  As you can see Gears is no longer all squished up, but he still retails the same blue and red color scheme and the same red cargo in the bed of the truck.  Black windows and a silver grill finish off the G1 look.

The plastic used is very good.  Not too soft, but not too hard.  The knobby wheels roll really well on a hard, smooth surface.  All of the panels fit nice and tight and makes the toy feel really solid.

One aspect of Transformers I really can appreciate is when the designers find a way to hide and conceal all of the robot bits.  SXS has done a great job here looking at the underside of Gears.  Even one of the two included guns can be stored underneath.  Win!

I forgot to take a picture of the simple instruction sheet, but it's very well laid out with easy to follow instructions to help you through the transformation process.  Gears unfolds slowly with tight joints and makes a great looking robot.  Look closely and you can see the blue paint has a slight metallic look to it.  It's not overly noticeable unless you hold it up to light (or a camera flash).

The designers did a bang up job at capturing the likeness of the Gears character.  All that is missing are some recorded lines from the G1 cartoon of Gears whining and complaining!

Gears' head sits on a ball joint that is flush with the body, but the joint allows the head to be rotated a full 360 degrees.  I turned the head all the way around so you could see the entire back of the head is cast in translucent blue plastic that aids in the light piping for the eyes.

Don't judge Gear's articulation based on my lack of imagination of dynamic poses.  If you can think up the pose, I'm sure you'll be able to pull it off!  Most of the joints used in the figure are ball joints.  Right out of the package all of the joints were really tight.  I can't express how impressed I am here.

I know the burning question many will have is "How does he scale with other Transformers?".  Personally I think he is too big to go alongside your Classics / Generations Autobots.  Granted the Classics Bumblebee by Hasbro is about the same size, the iGear Mini Warriors fit the bill better.  I think Gears looks really great alongside the new Masterpiece figures as you can see above.  He's smaller than Sideswipe and Red Alert, but not tiny.  He should blend in well wherever you decide to fit him into your collection.  I haven't seen many pictures from other collectors yet so I'm not sure how everyone is displaying this new version of Gears.

In closing I have to say I'm very impressed with this release.  He's not the cheapest 3rd party Transformer (expect to pay around $70-$75), but for a figure that has seemed to fly underneath everyone's radar he's very, very good.  Toy World's subsequent releases have been stellar so I really hope that SXS follows suit with their next release.  Unless you just love the iGear Mini Warriors, I say grab this toy...he's that good.