Phil's
Micromaster Monster Truck Patrol:
Big Hauler, Heavy Tread, Hydraulic & Slow Poke
Review

The Micromaster Monster Truck Patrol were released in 1990 in the same wave of Micromaster toys that also featured the Military and Hot Rod Truck Patrols. We can be pretty certain of this because there's been a recent warehouse find of cases of these three patrols meaning that they're available cheaply (aprox £35.00 for a set of all three carded).

The whole team was available in Japan as C-361 Hot Rod Team and were packed with Micro Trailer #1.

Big Hauler

Big Hauler is a green truck cab with oversized "monster truck" tires. Think Optimus Prime in green with huge wheels and you'll be there.

Transformation: fold the back of the truck back to form the legs. Stand with the underside of the vehicle facing towards you. Raise the arms up from the sides of the robot.

Big Hauler's most prominent feature is his HUGE flat feet extending out from the front of the vehicle - here they're formed from the back of the cab and the exhausts but I think if you ever made a Transformer forklift he'd end up with similar looking feet. While most of his body is the same green as the truck, his robot head,body and upper legs are yellow - he's co-moulded with his team mate Slow Poke who has the same colours reversed. Big Hauler has the standard Micromaster articulation of turning shoulders and bending but linked hips & knees.

Decent truck Micromaster.

Heavy Tread

Heavy Tread looks more like a drag racer than a truck with a long thin six wheeled design (the middle pair are moulded and don't turn)He's predominantly orange but has a very large grey engine block mounted on his middle. He sticks out rather from the rest of the set.

Transformation: fold the back of the car back to form the legs. Stand with the underside of the vehicle facing towards you. Fold the bonnet down onto the chest. Raise the arms up from the sides of the robot.

Unfortunately the bonnet won't fold right down onto the chest which leaves it in a position where it somewhat obscures the face of the robot. His revealed robot parts - head and upper legs plus the concealed chest are made of blue plastic which means he's co moulded with Hydraulic which also uses blue & orange plastic. Standard Micromaster articulation.

Hydraulic

Hydraulic is a blue pick-up with orange robot parts. Micromaster Mudslinger from the Off Road Patrol is also a blue pick-up with orange robot parts. The only difference really is the transformation: Hydraulic's rear folds backwards to become the legs while Mudslinger's front becomes the legs.

As close to being a remake of an earlier Micromaster as any are. As mentioned above he's co-moulded with Heavy Tread.

Slow Poke

Slow Poke is a yellow pick-up truck. He's got a grey tow hook mounted on his rear.

Fold the front of the car - including the cab - forward 180 degrees to form the legs. Stand with the underside facing you. Fold the arms up from the sides of the vehicle.

Standard Micromaster Articulation again I'm afraid, you rarely get anything interesting to say about how the limbs move on these toys. His head, chest and legs are moulded in green plastic - he's co-moulded with the predominantly green Big Hauler who's got red robot parts - the inverse of those used here.

If Slow Poke swapped his major and minor colours round he'd be a decent Micromaster Hoist !

I like this set. Sure one Micromaster is nearly a remake of an older one and another looks a little silly in both modes. But there's a little more variety here than in some of the ground based Micromaster sets.

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