The Vintage "Lesser" Brand Robots Thread. "Give me your Converters, your Androform, your huddled Zybots yearning to transform."

[Donocropolis]

First heard of these a while back, but only just recently found one in real life. This is one of Tomy's Tribots.

It was a small line, only 3 molds, each available in 2 colors for a total of 6 figures, the good Shut-L (spaceship), Mob-L (tank), and C-Bees (speedboat), and their evil counterparts Mis-L, Bat-L, and Nav-L (who I have here).

They're second-cousins to Tomy's Starriors line, sharing some design elements. Size is a bit larger than a modern Deluxe, maybe more of a small Voyager. Chunky and solid with shockingly good articulation for the time period:

They're called Tribots because they are all triple-changers, each having a Robot mode, vehicle mode, and what could generously be called an "animal mode."

Nav-L, as the name would imply, is a boat. Specifically a racing speedboat, which is neat for me personally because I live in a town with a small, calm, man-made lake that apparently is the perfect conditions for this style of boat race, so they gather here one weekend every summer as part of their circuit. Having seen a lot of these boats in person, I can attest that the alt-mode here is pretty accurate, maybe a bit thicker than they are in real life, but otherwise pretty spot-on.

Finally, here is the "animal" mode, which I've seen described as a dinosaur, horse, or llama, depending on who you ask.

 

[Haywire]

I might be pushing the boundaries of "vintage" here, as this line is only from around 2012-2014, but this is the last line I really tried to go "all in" on: Diarobo!

Ostensibly a subline of Agatsuma's Diapet 1:64 scale vehicles (basically Hot Wheels size), Diarobo is a series of transforming, officially licensed vehicles with a variety of interesting robot modes. To my mind, the series was the closest thing to Machine Robo/Gobots that was available at that time, and I was more excited about these little guys than the then-current Transformer offerings.

Each vehicle had 2-5 (but usually 3) variant forms, much like early Transformers, this could be both alternate colors and emergency vehicle forms. The really amazing thing is that, even when the plastic was the same color as the car (such as white or orange), the whole vehicle mode was painted, giving a generally uniform color.

Robot modes are a mix of humanoid and animal forms. The humanoid forms don't do anything too special, but are generally decent, especially at this size. The animal forms are a mixed bag; there is a lot of ambitious design here, but the execution is sometimes lacking. Standouts include the Brachiosaurus, the gorilla, the birds, and the Tyrannosaurs.

The four different humanoid molds.

A Rex, a Triceratops, and a Brachiosaur. I didn't get the Pteranodon Prius out for this shoot.

The Nissan Cube lizards, and the Juke Cat and Wolf were less successful attempts, in my opinion.

Also, the Toyota Bear...

I really likes the HumVee gorillas, and the Prius birds (like Taxi Crow)

The gas pump bots from the gas station base.

The gas station base transformed.

Overall, it's a fun little line. Some of the robot modes have more bits just hanging off than I'd like, and a lot of limbs move on thin struts, but the only breakage I've had is one pin that holds the door in place on a HumVee gorilla. The plus sides are the paint apps, and a lot of figures have alternate heads, giving a nice variety of figures!

 

[Haywire]

My Binder of Knowledge...

Pack-in materials

Card art to show off all the various forms.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

How did this fly under my radar? I love Micromaster bases, so I'd have been all over this.

 

[Haywire]

The gas station was one of the later releases, so it may not have been very apparent unless you were collecting the line? After I found them, I was pre-ordering from suppliers like ami-ami and amazon japan as soon as they got listed, but if a person wasn't looking for them, I'm not sure you would have found them.

 

[Stepwise]

Those are fun. I've dug through and looked at pics every so often when they were referenced somewhere, but never picked any up.