In the US the Autobot leader is usually Optimus Primal. In Japan he's Convoy usually with some prefix to describe his function. The Convoy for Car Robots is Super Fire Convoy which should tip you off to him being a fire engine. The fire engine is mainly red, with some silver panels and clear blue windows covering the rounded front of the toy. There's one large wheel at the front and two smaller wheels at the back on each side each with chromed hubcaps and rubber tires bearing the words "Fire Convoy" round the sides.
At the back of the vehicle he's got a turntable mounted ladder which turns, raises up and extends to twice it's length. Mounted on the far end of the ladder is a unit with a button on it - press this and a pair of cannons - presumably for water in this mode - flip out. When the ladder is retracted there's a button in the base of the ladder that when pressed deploys four missile launchers along the length of the ladder which in turn automatically fire. These end up in the top half of the ladder when extended and the button has to be hunted for within the structure of the ladder.
Above and behind the windows at the front are a pair of red light bars with a button in the middle. When you press the button, the lights flash and there's a number of sounds/voices:
A siren
when confronted with this last sound several people have been heard to comment that it sounds more like "I'm a Goldfish, Transform !"
The only real problem this mode has it does bend a little a not hold
together terribly well due to the design used to accomplish the other modes.
In particular don't pick it up by the front/back and let it hang down and
watch out to make sure the panels on the side are all locked together.
In the middle of the vehicle are two chrome dual (water ?) cannons mounted
on what can only be described as a robot head. Although the cannons fit,
the robot head detracts a little.
Transform to Fire Convoy: Pull the cab part off the front of the fire
engine. Set the rest of the fire engine including the turntable and ladder
aside for later. Fold the side sections with the wheels in forward so
they're under the windows and bend the front of these round the cab. Pull
the windows away from where the light bars are and fold so the top of the
windows is pointing forward. You should be able to see the robot legs and
waist now inside the fire engine. Bend the waist section and the piece it's
attached to back so that the legs end up under the revealed robot chest.
Fold the light bars back. Fold the sides of the top of the cab down to
become the arms. Pull the bottom halves of the arms down - this will extend
the fists behind the piece of plastic you're pulling on. Rotate each lower
arm out to the side. Return to the legs, separate the lower legs and turn
each of them in 90 degrees so the wheels end up on the knee caps. Remove
the gun and place in the robot's hand. Open the white covers on the back of
the legs, fold the feet down and replace the covers which should lock round
the panels the feet are attached to. Finally push the robot body down onto
the waist and in the process raise Fire Convoy's head.
The resulting robot is *definitely* Optimus Prime, but with some
modifications. The most obvious one gives him red legs - albeit covered in
clear blue windscreen and red & silver detailing together with wheels
covering the kneecaps. Legs, forearms & hands are white - the forearms have
a band of blue round the wrist and the hands a grey outer covering. The
head is Prime - blue, with a crest & silver face plate. He has the same
gold foil eyes as Big Convoy does. The head looks sleeker than many Prime
heads mainly due to the diagonally swept back grey antennae on the sides.
The chest is chromed in red with blue painted windows and silver chromed
stomach muscles (where the grill would be on G1 Prime). The look is good
but due to the way the toy folds up and that the chest piece ends up clipped
next to other pieces I've found the chrome on mine has rubbed off rather a
lot. His gun is a small hand weapon with a wheel at the back which looks a
little like a reel out fire hose !
Articulation: Ball jointed head, shoulders bend forward & back, rotate
forward & back and fold to the sides. He has a bicep swivel, a bending
elbow and a ball jointed wrist. His waist turns and would be limited by the
battery, lights and noise module in his back pack but this lifts up at the
top to allow full waist movement. The legs move at the hips forwards, back
& to the sides. The knees bend, the legs swivel bellow the knees and the
feet are on ball joints. I mentioned the lights and sound - these still
work in this mode and produce the same effects.
This is a very good Prime robot, poseable and looks G1 enough to satisfy
most hard core fans.
To go further with the toy we need to dismantle the trailer: Pull the front
segments off to the sides. Fold the top & bottom out, then the sides to
reveal a dual cannon and what looks like a hand inside each one. The next
two pieces pull off a solid L shaped looking lumps with some tubing bridging
both branches. The turn table and middle of the truck then pulls off the
base & rear wheel which in turn separate in two down the middle. Fold the
grey panel out from under these pieces towards the front but only as far as
it's pointing down. Fold the wheels so they're underneath the red block and
then fold the grey panel out further.
On the inside of the rear wheel blocks there are moulded missile arrays.
These blocks can be mounted on pegs on Fire Convoy's shoulders to add to his
firepower. Check which of Fire Convoy's hands is holding the gun (his right
or left *NOT* your right or left). Take the first letter of the other
direction. Find the gun and hand piece that has that written on the bottom.
Fold the panel with the cannon on it back to form an L shape with the hand
panel but with the gun & the hand on the outside. Fold the other two panels
back to lock with it. Place onto the free hand's forearm. Of course you
can remove the gun and add the extra firepower to the other hand as well !
These all add nice power ups to Fire Convoy.
Another use for the trailer pieces is to form a base. Joint the wheel
blocks back together, place the turntable on top of it and fold down the
front of the turntable unit. Bend the ladder at it's base till upright.
Fold the sides of the ladder out. Fold the top of the ladder forward and
deploy the water cannon. Peg the dual cannon units into the top of the
wheel blocks - the blue painted section should face up, to the front and not
be the part connected to the wheel base. Take the remaining L shaped
pieces, place the on their sides with the silver pipe facing up. With the
grey cylinder on the end of them on the outside of the unit peg them under
the blue sections of the dual cannon pieces.Turn the dual cannons forward.
Fold the thumb on the hand to the side and fold the hand down. Fold up the
panel behind the hand.
To be honest this base mode is a bit like "let's throw all the rest of the
bits together. But they fit together reasonably well, the tower looks
good - a fireman's training tower ? Look out post ? Communications
antennae ?
But what you *really* want to do with the extra pieces is combine all of
them with Fire Convoy. Return them to the state described above when you
remove them from the fire truck. Take Fire Convoy, remove the gun and set
aside. Pull the shoulders out to the side. Pull down on the legs just
enough for the head to recess into the body but not enough for the second
bending joint in the waist to emerge. Form the hand & cannon units as
above: Fold the panel with the cannon on it back to form an L shape with the
hand panel but with the gun & the hand on the outside. Fold the other two
panels back to lock with it. Place units over the appropriate forearm.
Take the back wheel blocks and open the grey flap on top. Fold the detailed
panel of pipe work within up & forwards. With both missile arrays facing each
other place Fire Convoy's feet into these blocks - there's a peg that
matches a hole in Fire Convoy's feet. Fold the pipe work back and lock the
peg on the back of it onto the front of Fire Convoy's leg. Take the L
shaped pieces. With the silver pipe facing forward and the grey cylinder to
the outside place over Fire Convoy's shoulders so that the pegs inside them
lock into the holes on the shoulder panels. Take the turntable section and
bend the ladder right the way back so it's pointing down & fold up the water
cannon section at the end. Place the turntable's base over Fire Convoy's
head hole so the pegs sticking up match the holes in the turntable's base.
Fold the front down till clips on the back of it click into the chest.
Straighten the bottom against Fire Convoy's waist. . Place Fire Convoy's
hand gun in the peg hole on your right of Super Fire Convoy's head.
It was at this point I broke for sleep at the end of Day One of the Super
Fire Convoy review !
The fully assembled robot is again very Prime like in it's appearance but different from both G1 Optimus Prime and Fire Convoy - of whom very little is now visible. He has near identical levels of articulation as his smaller version - loosing the ball jointed feet but gaining a thumb that can either be alongside or opposed to the other fingers in his hand. In this respect his hands are a more refined version of Optimal Optimus'. The head is in the Prime style but this time moulded in red with silver trim round the red face plate, above & bellow the eyes and on the faceplate. The antennae are the dual water cannons I mentioned earlier and these pivot independently.
The chest includes a molded bandolier slung over it (like Chewbacca or BW Neo Guiledart & his descendants) There's an Autobot symbol on it over where it crosses his right breast - lift the flap it's on up and revealed within is this toy's representation of the Matrix continuing a tradition started in Lio Convoy and continues in Big Convoy.
Although he has no hand gun in this mode - Fire Convoy's is shoulder mounted and the dual cannons of base mode have ended up on the forearms - he does have one huge shoulder mounted cannon. To deploy it: Swing the turntable round so it's on your right, then swing the back of the turntable's base out to the left. Fold the ladder up & forward over the shoulder. Raise up the module on the end, then deploy the water cannons. The missile launchers can then be fired by pressing the button at the back of the cannon.
Super Fire Convoy was released as Car Robots toy C-001. Personally I thought putting three figures on the numbering system was asking for trouble and so it proved with Car Robots having the shortest set of Japanese number. He comes in two box styles - the early one has him in vehicle mode and in a box with a window on the front. The later one is a not so deep solid rectangular box with pictures on either side one horizontal and one vertical similar to all the other Car Robots Gift sets (bar Gigatron). This box contains the Fire Convoy robot surrounded by the extra pieces for the rear of the trailer and Super Fire Convoy.
Super Fire Convoy is a truly stunning toy. Released at the time Beast Machines was struggling - and not just through a lack of new BM toys after the initial release I remember many a Transformers fan happily clutching the window boxed version at Transforce 2000. Decent vehicle, two good robots, decent sound and mechanical gimmicks and a definite resemblance, though updated, to it's G1 ancestor. Well worth getting.
Here's my original 2000 review of the toy:
"SUPER FIRE CONVOY
A nice big red fire engine - sound effects are cool and very Japanese....
Extendable ladder containing 4 missile launchers which are triggered
together from a single button.
Cab separates and unfolds to form the Fire Convoy robot - another very
poseable Prime Like robot. In fact the most prime looking robot since G2
Combat Hero Prime. A gun is hidden under the cab which he can hold.
Rear becomes - via a disconnect and reassemble operation a radar base. Not
big enough for Prime - but on the right scale to send you scurrying for your
Micromasters.
An "official" in between mode - lets call it Fire Convoy Battle mode -
involves mounting the divided rear of the truck onto his shoulders - nice
hidden detail of some missile banks - and attaching one of the more forward
pieces as an arm guard - with Wrist Cannon :-) There are permutations on
this...
Super Fire Convoy is formed by slotting the rear halves onto his feet, the
mid sections onto his arms and the forward pieces of the rear onto the
shoulders. The robot body is extended and the base of the ladder folds over
his upper torso and back. Robot gun mounted on shoulder, ladder behind him.
Now as I was Demo'ing this on Wednesday unnamed fan goes "Ah man he ain't
got any big guns in robot mode" at which point I turned the ladder over the
shoulder to form one of the biggest cannons ever seen on a TF ! There's a
red and silver Primeesque head, with rotating twin blasters on the side of
the head. Leoconvoy style Matrix panel on the chest. 24cm high to the robot
head, 28 to the top of the ladder when down or over the shoulder.
Well you can't really go wrong with a big red robot can you ? ;-) This is a
great toy, and I expect to hear many more people singing it's praises before
we're done this year ! "
Clear God Fire Convoy changes the solid red pieces to clear red and many of the grey pieces - including the ladder & Fire Convoy's waist - to white.
Attractive repaint. Comes with Clear God Magnus and a modified version of Fortress Maximus' master sword mounted on a staff but missing the hilt for Fort Max to hold it.
Clear Super Fire Convoy was a Japanese Toys R Us exclusive in 2000.
Physically the toys are identical apart from the addition of an extra Autobot symbol on the sides of the vehicle which en up on top of the shoulder pads of the larger toy.
Electronically the voicebox has been changed - according to one resource I found on the Internet he now says ""Optimus Prime, MAXIMIZE!", " Autobots, TRANSFORM!" and "Fire!"
Optimus Prime was an exclusive to Costco in 2003 and sold with a recolour of RID Ultra Magnus.
Fire Convoy & the ladder base become a Hotspot pale blue. All the cream becomes black. The rest of the vehicle becomes grey. He gets a new black head.
Very G1 Defensor like and a loss when the exclusive was cancelled in the wake of 3H winding up.
"Fire !" then gunfire
"Cyber forces, Transform !"
Black Super Fire Convoy
Given away as a competition prize in Japan, Black Fire Convoy is a black repaint of Super Fire Convoy. The fire engine looks odd in black but the robot works. Little did they know what was about to be unleashed on us with the arrival of generally available Black Optimus Prime versions.
Clear Super Fire Convoy
TFU.info is at the moment missing pictures of this toy but there's some good ones here
Robots In Disguise Optimus Prime
After Beast machines finished early in 2001 Hasbro took the decision to release Car Robots in the US as Robots In Disguise. Super Fire Convoy became Optimus Prime and was included in the initial release of toys.
Universe Optimus Prime
Universe Optimus Prime takes the red and swaps it for an Airport style fire engine mustard yellow. I'm not so keen on the colour but some might like it. Unfortunately there is a big mistake on the toy. The chrome on Fire Convoy's chest has been left as red instead of being altered to silver. As such it clashes horribly with the rest of the toy and looks very out of place.
Unrelease Botcon Defensor
Optimus Prime has two unreleased colour variants that were intended as Botcon exclusives
Chaos Armour Defensor
The second unreleased Botcon exclusive is very similar to the first Defensor above except almost all the exposed vehicle panels - with the exception of the sound box - is now moulded in black.
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