The last of Popy's original quartet of Machine Robo Series figures, the Gyro Robo was released in Japan in 1982, and along with its' three stablemates, sold well enough to establish Machine Robo - leading to the series becoming a Bandai staple over the next few years. Early in 1983, Bandai issued the figure in Europe (as part of Robo Machine) and America (as part of Machine Men, 'named' as Copter Man), and before the year was out, Tonka wanted in on this.

The figure was co-opted into the first line of Gobots, and given the name Cop-Tur. The character was given one of the lead roles in the Challenge of the Gobots animated series, as Renegade leader Cy-Kill's head goon. Cop-Tur also featured in the first arc of Fleetway's licensed Robo Machines comic, getting to help invade Birmingham before he was captured and deactivated by the Robotron Security Forces. Cop-Tur's high media profile (okay, he was hardly keeping Simon Le Bon out of Smash Hits, but he was in the cartoon a fair bit...) meant Cop-Tur continued production alongside the second series.

Back in Japan, one of the Machine Robo 'Best 5' giftsets featured a recolour, replacing the blue with dark grey. Several plastic bootlegs of the figure were made in the 1980s by various companies, and most of them messed up the colours, such as a Chinese number with red arms... A new Gyro Robo was released in 2003 as part of the Machine Robo Rescue line, but this bore only superficial ressemblance to the original figure.

Cop-Tur's helicopter mode isn't based on a real type. This in itself is not necessarily a problem, but the design Katsushi Murakami came up with is incredibly ugly - a boxy device riddled with problems and low on aesthetics. The scale just looks wrong - the cockpit would indicate this is a massive helicopter, around the same size as the Sea Knight used for Carry-All, and it just looks too bulky and clumsy to have any hope of taking off.

The colour scheme isn't too smart either - the rather thoughtless block of white (prone to paint chipping) nestles uncomfortably among the off-blue plastic. But wait! There's a seemingly arbitrary red stripe going across the rear of the fuselage! Good work Popy, that makes all the difference! Or, y'know, maybe not.

Like Tank, the alternate mode is heavily compromised by the need to turn into a robot in a simple fashion - the tail section is split into two booms for no better reason than they have to become the legs (complete with chromed support struts, i.e. the robot thighs), the claw-like hands are visible on the back of the undercarriage, and the robot's face is underneath the nose. Oh dear…

The transformation is very simple - not the simplest of Gobots, but then far from complex, even for a first series mould. The tail straightens out to form the legs, the undercarriage folds out to the side to forms the arms, and then you have to stand him up. Actually, that's not such a fait accompli. Thanks to the big block of diecast, Cop-Tur's ludicrously top-heavy, and even slight wear to the chrome thighs leads to the legs refusing to lock into place, and send him toppling over backwards.

The chromed arms are also a major point of wear, and can pop off their sockets easily - the weak plastic meaning reconnecting them isn't always so easy. The robot mode doesn't look too bad, though at least the white paint being on the back out of the way lends him a more coherent colour scheme - the flashes of silver and yellow look rather good.

The head design isn't quite as horrid as Hanna-Barbera would have you believe either - the head is conical, but the face is simply set into this, rather than wrapped around, and aside from an oversized visor, his face is normal, lacking the ugly beak the cartoon model was lumbered with. That his claw-hands (not a fan of claw hands, on the whole - I can never ignore the huge number of impracticalities these would bestow) can hold his main rotor blade is a nice touch, but brings the question of what to do with the tiny, easy-to-lose tail rotor.