TRANSFORMERS Vintage G1 Legion Class Autobot Bumblebee

The original model of Bumblebee which was released in both yellow and red in the first batch of Transformers in 1984, has to remain as one of my all-time favourite Transformer figures. His Transformation process was quite simple but somehow very pleasing and managed to produce both a good robot and vehicle mode. The same model was later released as part of the G2 line in a gold colour scheme and was also used in other colours in several South American countries. This ‘vintage’ version is much the same model but with a few tweaks and is basically the same as the version that came in a collection box with five other mini Autobot re-issues in the early 2000s. It’s main change from the original is that its face is no longer the robotic visage but the more humanoid one that featured in the comics and cartoons. He also has silver rather than black bumpers and possesses coloured headlights. Oddly the packaging goes to the effort of showing a picture of the toy in vehicle mode with these changes whereas the robot picture still possesses the original face. It is a bit of a novelty to have an original looking figure with the animated version of the face as I’m not sure if this happened with any other character (Brawn, for instance, was often shown with a humanoid face and many of the later toy versions had such a look, but I don’t think there was ever a re-issue of the original toy with such). Thus, it is a nice addition to a Bumblebee collection.