Mystery time: Canadian 1990 "Classic" Aerialbots and Stunticons?

[Nevermore]

Previous Mystery Time threads:
Beast Hunters Ultimate Beast Fire Predaking, Canadian/Latin American version

Disclaimer: I think I posted some of this before during the Big Allspark Outage of 2021, but it was lost in the second crash.


Anyway. As always, this is a Nevermore thread, so please be aware I've already reseached this stuff, and I'm asking about something very specific, so please try to avoid general "I think..." answers based on half-remembered outdated knowledge from a decade ago.


So back in 1990, Hasbro had canceled the "Transformers" toyline in the United States, but was continuing it in Europe with the "Classic" line-up of reissues of older figures (also known as the "Euro Classics", less accurately as the "UK Classics" or simply as the "gold box" or "gold card" reissues). More "Classic" reissues then followed in 1991.

Up until recently, I was aware of four different types of packaging for the "Classics": English only (predominantly available in the UK), French/Dutch (available in France, Belgium and the Netherlands), Spanish (available in Spain) and Italian (available in Italy, distributed by Italian Hasbro licensee GiG).

Here are some of the 1990 "Classic" Stunticons in those aforementioned packaging versions:

English:


French/Dutch:


Spanish:


Italian:

 

[Nevermore]

A few months ago, I discovered that there appears to be a version of 1990 "Classic Stunticon" Breakdown in Canadian packaging, featuring texts in French and English. One of them was even reviewed by Maz two years ago.

Oddly, the only figure I was able to find photos of in Canadian packaging was Breakdown, but none of the others.


Numerous oddities here: The order of languages is French/English, rather than English/French, as was the standard on Canadian packaging throughout most of G1 as well as G2. Also, all the Stunticons were given different alternate French names than they had on 1986 Canadian packaging:


1986 Canadian Motormaster was "Pilot-As" in French, 1990 Canadian "Classic" Motormaster was "Cerveau" in French.
1986 Canadian Dead End was "Impasse" in French, 1990 Canadian "Classic" Dead End was "Borne" in French.
1986 Canadian Breakdown was "Panicon" in French, 1990 Canadian "Classic" Breakdown was "Optique" in French.
1986 Canadian Wildrider was "Faroucho" in French, 1990 Canadian "Classic" Wildrider was "Chauffard" in French.
1986 Canadian Drag Strip was "Démarro" in French, 1990 Canadian "Classic" Drag Strip was "Broyeur" in French.

Also, all the photos of 1990 "Classic" Breakdown in Canadian packaging depict what appears to be a sticker in Chinese language on the cardback, suggesting that the figure in this packaging was purchased at retail in China rather than in Canada. This matches with claims by Canadian fans that the "Euro Classics" were supposedly never actually available at retail in Canada. Or were they?

 

[Nevermore]

Well... then yesterday, the other shoe dropped. But first, here are the 1990 "Classic Aerialbots" in the various packaging versions:

English:


French/Dutch:


Spanish:


Italian:

 

[Nevermore]

And here is the 1990 "Classic Aerialbot" Fireflight in Canadian packaging, again featuring texts in French and English:


Again, there's a sticker in Chinese language on the card. The "French" names are even weirder this time - all five Aerialbots feature their respective English name twice!

Once again, this doesn't match up with the 1986 Canadian-packaged versions of the Aerialbots, nor does it match up with the 1994 Canadian-packaged Generation 2 Aerialbots.



1986 Canadian Silverbolt was "Éclairo" in French, 1990 Canadian "Classic" Silverbolt was just "Silverbolt" twice, and 1994 Canadian Generation 2 Silverbolt was "Vif-Argent" in French.
1986 Canadian Air Raid was "Bombardo" in French, 1990 Canadian "Classic" Air Raid was just "Air Raid" twice, and 1994 Canadian Generation 2 Air Raid was "Bombardo" in French again.
1986 Canadian Skydive was "Parachuto" in French, 1990 Canadian "Classic" Skydive was just "Skydive" twice, and 1994 Canadian Generation 2 Skydive was "Parachuto" in French again.
1986 Canadian Fireflight was "Boule de Feu" in French, 1990 Canadian "Classic" Fireflight was just "Fireflight" twice, and 1994 Canadian Generation 2 Fireflight was "Flammèche" in French.
1986 Canadian Slingshot was "La Fronde" in French, 1990 Canadian "Classic" Slingshot was just "Slingshot" twice, and 1994 Canadian Generation 2 Slingshot was "La Fronde" in French again.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

Weird.

I'm not aware of any French name changes for the Aerialbots or Stunticons - and Hasbro would have still had a Canadian office in Longueuil, Quebec (near Montreal) at the time.

That said, though I cannot recall any Euro Classics re-releases in my part of Canada in 1990, Action Masters and Micromaster teams were still being sold up until 1991.

The curious things is, the now-long-defunct Woodward's (a local department store chain) had the small Turbomasters in 1993, shortly before Generation 2 kicked off. So it wouldn't be unprecedented to have European Transformers on Canadian shelves, though I'm not altogether sure how the Turbomasters got to Western Canada (perhaps it was part of the same aborted cross-fertilization that would have seen Skyquake in both Europe and Japan?).

 

[TheSupernova]

The thing about the Turbomasters was that there was a specific localization for them here on Canada. Case in point, the Autobot everyone knows as Rotorstorm was simply called Storm here. But why those were brought over and not the Gold Box stuff will likely forever be a mystery.

Little TheSupernova would have killed for those reissues here.

 

[Nevermore]

@Staff: Is it possible to lock this thread and move the two posts by Tuxedo Prime and The Supernova to this one, which has become a central hub for all sorts of toy and packaging oddities and also contains the Euro Classics images?