I don't have much to add here about these two Japanese Car Robots 2000 Jusco exclusive promo transformers that I haven't mentioned on other links on this site. As the pictures indicate these are cool looking toys. Where will they end up in the new Robots In Disguise 2001 toy line is yet to be seen. Just today I read the news of what the US names will be for these two guys; Wrecker Hook will be Tow-Line, Indy Heat will be Skid-Z. Personally I think this Indy Heat is a dead ringer for Generation 1 Mirage.
A little recap of where these molds have been and where I think they are heading. These two molds were first used for the Kay Bee Toys U.S. Exclusive Machine Wars toy line. KB got the rights to the Machine Wars exclusive line from Hasbro during the course of the Beast Wars era. I believe this served two purposes: 1. Kay Bee got to benefit from an exclusive line of transformers during the era of Beast Wars. 2. Hasbro got to test market the possibility of getting back to the G1/G2 roots of car transformers.
I believe Hasbro got these molds from unproduced Generation 2 toy molds, but don't quote me on that one. During Machine Wars these two molds were each used twice, they produced: Hoist & Hubcap, Mirage & Prowl. Although these two autobot molds were not recycled into Beast Wars Neo in Japan, the Machine Wars Jets did make it into Beast Wars Neo. The Machine Wars Jets were produced from two molds and named: Megatron & Megaplex, Thundercracker & Skywarp. In Japan's Beast Wars Neo line they resurfaced as Dirge and Thrust. These were the first appearences of these jet molds in the respective countries.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Hasbro and Takara amaze me to no end. So why did I mention the Jets here on this page, well it seems Hasbro has decided to pack the Autobots with Predacons (Decepticons?). For RID2001 the twopacks will be Tow-Line and SkyFire , Skid-Z and Wind Sheer. (Note: the two jets did not appear in CR2000 in Japan) It's rather funny, I think, that the names of these characters just popped up in a Hasbro press release this week. Not even at the 2001 toy show did Hasbro unveil the names or color schemes of these 4 toys. We'll all know shortly, Amazon is claiming to be getting them shortly, although no photos are up yet. So without any photos available of the RID2001 color schemes it's a pretty safe bet that "Tow-line" & "Skid-Z" will resemble their CR2000 color schemes. (I hope to get up a scan of my Car Robots 2000 toy catalog as soon as I dig it up and get to a scanner) As for the Jets, it's not clear if they will have the Beast Wars Neo color scheme or all new color schemes . I am hoping for all new color schemes since that'll increase the size of my Decepticon fleet.
Anyhow, I'm pretty certain that although Machine Wars did manage to sell through that Hasbro didn't give a green light for the return to the car robots roots. I think they left it up to Takara to introduce the Car Robots 2000 molds for the 15th anniversary of Transformers in Japan. I think Hasbro then weighed the results from Machine Wars with the unbridled U.S. demand for CR2000 imports to decide to release Robots In Disguise. I think that if the success of Machine Wars was enough to warrant the release of Robots in Disguise that both Japan and the U.S. would have unvieled the toys in the same year, 2000.
Will Kay Bee toys be rewarded yet again? I think it's very possible that if the exclusive versions of CR2000 don't manage to become fast food or mail away promos that Kay Bee Toys will be awarded the line of exclusives as their prize for selling Machine Wars so well. If that happens it will be in the hands of kids and die hard collectors to decided how cool clear variants of existing toys are.
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