Wagon '85
American Mini Bot

Picking up stuff on the search for invaders. Maybe.

For the 1985 batch of Mini-Bots, Select commissioned Mark to create a few new moulds, based on cars that would be relatively well-known to Americans. While four of the figures used American designs, this one was an exception, modelled on the 1984 update of the Toyota Hilux - however, this version was sold in large numbers in America as the Toyota 4Runner, so that was probably the angle.

The earlier Hilux model had also been a Mini Bot, the Robo Car-originated Wagon, and Select decided to retain the name for this new Hilux. I'm not entirely sure why they bothered (and not for, say, either Bird or Vette, who could have taken over from Sports), beyond that imagination doesn't seem to have been a strongpoint for Select when it came to naming figures. Like the other American Mini Bots, multiple versions were produced - one with a turquoise chest, one with a black chest, and likely a third with another colour.

Sadly, the new Wagon is nowhere near as interesting as his predecessor. The 4Runner is a pretty bland, agricultural machine - as with Voyager and to a lesser extent Baron, you've got to praise Select (or Mark, or whoever) for providing a vehicle that would serve for a disguise outside the Miami Vice car lot, but it's hardly an enthralling choice.

The blue really isn't pleasant - my pictures are a little too dark, it's more like this, and slightly lurid pastel to look at. The stickers are gaudy too, clashing badly with the main scheme.

The robot mode follows the same rough pattern as Voyager, including the awkward proportions - once again we have a long set of legs (with the thinner lower legs simultaneously managing to be more realistically proportioned than Voyager's, while also accenting just how stupidly long the limbs actually are), and there's the same squashed head at the top of the torso.

The green (which has come out in the pictures a lot more blue than it is - it's more like this) is a ridiculously bad choice for the plastic chest, clashing with the main blue, while the silver striped shin stickers also just serve to make him look really lanky. The black-chested version looks better, but still has the nasty blue as a main colour.

My example suffered, bizarrely, the same ailments as my Voyager, being down an arm and with the other glued in place. I don't feel like I'm losing out, somehow... There's very little to recommend this figure for other than completing the set of Mini Bots, and the original Wagon is much more charming.