Phil's
Transformers Brawn, Jipe & Outback
Review

Brawn

Brawn, like the other five Minibots, started life as part of the Microchange Minicar series where he was numbered 07. See Bumblebee's review for more on the Microchange series. This version of Brawn is essentially the character as we know him today.

Brawn is a green jeep with a tire mounted on it's roof. The front window is black plastic, but the rest are unpainted. At first glance it looks like the tire *might* take a 5mm peg, like many Microman toys, but alas no.

Transformation: Fold the base of the sides down and back 180 degrees so they stick out the back of the vehicle as legs. Stand with the underside facing forward. Pull the side doors out to the sides, fold back and then fold the arms out of them. Push down on the toy to compact the legs by sliding the hip joints up approximately 5mm.

Brawn's robot mode is the least well proportioned of all the original Minibots. Tinsy tiny chromed arms with hook hands compared to long thin legs even when the hips have been retracted. Revealed in this mode is the yellow of the chest & head, which is complete with face plate & painted silver. His articulation is OK with turning shoulders and hips: you can sit him down which beats the other five Minibots and should allow him to sit in a seat design for an Action Master/Microman toy.

The robot's proportions are the only real complaints here.

In Japan Brawn is named Gong and numbered 15 in the original Transformers number sequence before the Cybertron(Autobot) and Destron(Decepticon) divide of the C & D numbers.

Jipe

Visit Super Toy Archive's South American Minibot page for a look at some of the "interesting" paint variants out there of Brawn's South American counterpart Jipe. Most swap the green & yellow, but there's one that swaps the black of the tire too: There's a Tan & Cream Jipe Blue & White Jipe and a Black, Purple & Yellow (for black) Jipe.

Outback

Outback is a 1986 remould of Brawn which swaps the green for tan and the yellow for brown. The brown piece for the chest is remoulded and features a new visored face painted silver. The real bonus with this toy is the extra gun which pegs into his tire in vehicle mode.

Outback is Japanese toy C-59. Outback was reissued in Japan with a new painted blue visor as part of 2008's Transformers Encore #10 Minibot set. This set also contains:

Re-Issue Bumblebee a re-mould of Original Bumblebee
Pipes a repaint of Huffer
Tailgate a repaint of Windcharger
Swerve a repaint of Gears
I like Outback's added gun, it's a shame he can't hold it. But what really attracted me to the toy was his character's exposure in the Transformers comics, one of the few 1986 Minibots to get a starring role at the time of their initial release.

Keychain Brawn

In 2001 Fun for All licensed some of the Minibot toys and released them as key fobs. Windcharger was released in the second wave with Brawn. Windcharger has his original colour scheme but the front bumper of the car now sports a plastic loop which is used to attach them to a key chain. On Brawn this actually works because the loop looks like part of a towing mechanism. The keychain versions were released by Takara in 2003 and again by Hasbro in 2007.

Black Keychain Brawn

When Takara released the four Keychains in 2003 (Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Brawn & Windcharger) they also issued chase variants of all four characters. All plastic is now moulded in black with the faces or faceplates painted silver.

Transformers fans do love a black repaint.

For completeness sake here's the black Keychain versions of Windcharger, Bumblebee & Cliffjumper to complete the set.

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