Roll forward to the morning of Saturday 14th August 2010. Phil is sitting on his bed in his hotel room at The Holiday Inn, Birmingham. He's just survived the opening session of Auto Assembly and is happily opening his Encore Trailbreaker :-)
Trailbreaker had his origins as a Diaclone toy, in this case Diaclone toy #5, 4 wheel drive Toyota Hilux. The toy is in fact a Toyota Hilux camper truck, a standard Hilux with an extra shell over the flatbed at the back. The Diaclone version comes in the familiar black of the Transformers version plus a yellow version and a blue version. The Diaclone box art depicts the black version so I'll take this to be the definitive one. All 3 have similarly styled but slightly differently coloured stickers: the ones for the black version are predominantly yellow, instead of the more familiar black, with the same coloured stripes on them.The vehicle is quite an accurate reproduction with the exception of the opening hatch in the roof which allows you to sit a Diaclone driver in the cab. The bonnet of the car is the only metal piece on this mode, with the windows cast in a clear dark blue plastic. The only other solid plastic used is a small amount of red forming the rear headlights - we'll see more of the red in robot mode.
Transform: swing the legs down from under length of the car so they're locked onto the front bumper. Pull the legs apart and fold the feet down. Fold the sides of the vehicle out & up to the sides of the cab. Bend the front of the vehicle down to form the robot's chest, fold the camper unit onto his back and fold the head upon onto the top of the chest. Swing the sides of the vehicle down to form the arms, raise the forearms and attach the hands. Peg the radar scanner into the back of his head. Peg the single missiles into the top of his backpack.
Trailbreaker's got rather a top heavy robot mode with thin silver chromed legs that have two red rings at knee level. The feet, the only new metal parts in the robot mode, are the same colour as the car's bodywork with the entire upper body in the same colour. The top of the chest is formed from the cab so Trailbreaker is one of the Diaclone Transformers where the Diaclone driver can sit in the chest of the robot controlling it. The head blocks the hatch though, so you'll have to put the driver in before transforming the toy. The lower arms are the same chromed silver as the legs. Articulation is limited: the shoulders turn and the elbows bend, but the legs have nothing bar the joints used in the transformation. The forearms are missile launchers, powered by a red trigger on the outside of the arm. These are incredibly strong on the Japanese versions but weak to non existent on the western ones. By default they hold the hands but they can also accommodate the single missiles stored on the shoulders or the double ended missiles included with the toy. I think the single barrelled missiles look great attached here appearing as a natural extension of the forearm.
You need to be a little careful with Trailbreaker: it's quite easy to knock the backpack off and it very rarely goes back on as well as it was before. I knocked my current one into the sink an hour after opening it and the back has never been right since. You'd think it would be easy enough given this to swap Trailbreaker's back for Hoist's - see bellow - but the pegs holding them on and the accompanying holes seem to be of slightly different sizes.
Trailbreaker works for me as a design but in the plastic it feels a tiny bit fragile.
Trailbreaker was sold in the west in 1984 & 1985. He was released in Japan as Transformers toy #25. Trailbreaker was first reissued in 2001 as part of Set G of the original boxed reissues. Trailbreaker was paired with his remould Hoist and they were an exclusive to the C3 convention. Trailbreaker didn't appear in the TRU exclusive commemorative series, his next re-release was in 2008 as Encore #13 where his visor is changed from red to blue.
Trailbreaker hasn't received the love that some of the original Autobots have. To date there is no new toy named Trailbreaker or any variant on the name. However only this week (I'm writing this Friday 24th September) Hasbro announced Legends Trailcutter, which looks like an elongated version of the original vehicle. Trailbreaker has had one "hidden" homage under another name. 2004's Universe Spychanger Ironhide initially looks like Diaclone Ironhide but the diagonal stripes on a black pick-up truck hint you towards this actually being a new version of Trailbreaker. This toy was issued in a two-pack with Spychanger Ultra Magnus.
Hoist looses Trailbreaker's camper attachment over the flatbed of the truck replacing it with an orange (yellow on the two Diaclone versions) 2 part towing gear consisting of a frame on the flatbed which partially covers the robot's head - no flatbed Hilux from this mould as the head sits there behind the cab - and a towing plate which can either be folded onto the frame or folded down behind the vehicle to rest on it's fixed moulded wheel. When folded back you can tow a Diaclone car with it, though your mileage may vary between cars, which way they're facing and the surface you're towing on as to how effective this is. Trailbreaker, for example, kept falling off when towed forward on the living room rug but sat quite happily when towed backwards. When the towing plate is deployed you can mount the radar scanner in the back of Hoist's head so it appears as a light array peaking through the points at the top of the towing frame which I assume are meant to be emergency lights.
Transformation is as per Trailbreaker with some minor amendments. Start by folding the towing plate onto the frame. Then transform the toy. The "lights" have a pair of Radar Panels pegged into them which act as wings behind the head. Unfortunately when you stand him up there's a good chance the towing plate will flap down behind him so you may be better using the radar panels to anchor the towing plate in place.
Hoist's Robot mode reveals a new head. With the best will in the world, you can't describe Trailbreaker's head as the most interesting one on a Transformers toy. It's a box with a red line across the middle. Hoist tries his best to make up for this with individual eyes, a detailed visor and some very long ear panels! The new head was present on the Diaclone version of the toy but there's a South American version of Transformers Hoist which has the Trailbreaker head painted in the Hoist colours. The red plastic used on Trailbreaker is now orange on the Transformers version (it stays red on the Diaclone Blue version and turns black on the Diaclone red version) while the silver chrome remains the same.
I like Hoist. Years ago I acquired a Hoist box from a skip and loved the box art on it ! As Transformers go his vehicle mode is a little different, but the towing gear could maybe have been implemented a little better if they'd have included moving wheels on the corners as well as indentations for the wheels of the towing vehicle to sit in.
Hoist was available in the west in 1985 & 1986. He was sold in Japan as Transformers toy 46. With Trailbreaker, he was re-released in 2001 as Set G of the original boxed reissues which was an exclusive to the C3 convention that year. In 2003 he was part of Commemorative Series V with Inferno & Tracks. In 2008 he was Encore releases 14, which came out at the same time as Trailbreaker's Encore 13 release, where Hoist like Trailbreaker, had his eyes changed to blue.
Despite Hoist being a short cut for tow-truck, Hoist's had little love over the years. There is a Machine Wars version, originally in black, that has been recoloured many times but never in dark green & orange like the original. There's a couple of Spychanger Hoists, an X-Brawn redeco in the right colours and a rename of the Ironhide pick-up in clear blue, which might be a Diaclone homage but is more likely just wrong. Fortunately Movie Longarm has been repainted as ROTF Hoist a TRU exclusive packed with G1 coloured Mixmaster. To me this as close as we're going to get to a definitive modern version of Hoist.