Ok, I need to preface this with a personal statement: that white Police Sunstreaker is one of my all-time favorite figures, a former grail piece that I finally scored, and I just think it’s so purty… So you might say I’m biased.

This has been the Masterpiece that I always wanted to see produced, even more than any other release.

I think it’s kind of crazy to think that mega licensing deals between the world’s best car manufacturers and a toy company with a hit cartoon started in the 80’s could become such a big thing. But it makes sense, because cars and robots are just fucking cool. Happy that Lambo Countach was finally revived with this Diaclone tribute. It’s just one of the all-time best car designs ever. Plus, the black and white police paint scheme matches the car’s super futuristic lines. All in all, just a perfectly executed design, starting with the original Diaclone release to this Masterpiece.

I think one of the hallmarks of a classic figure is a unique head sculpt. A lot of Diaclone-cum-TF’s have super unique head designs, in line with the other Diaclone futuristic human space military vs alien military aesthetic, and often with some references to Egyptian gods and pharoahs (Look at Shogun Warriors’ Raideen for example). Cordon here is straight up King Tutankhamen here with his head dress and glowing red eyes.

And here’s probably the most important part of the photo shoot. The good ol’ side by side. Every once in a while you gotta pull him out of the vault, right? (I’ll be honest, it’s such an old figure and yet it hasn’t yellowed (yet) and so I’m always a bit nervous to pull him out in case he’s exposed to any UV rays… TF’s bring out the paranoid OCD in me.)

The driver is in the details. Really though, there’s nothing better than a Diaclone car with its driver inside. It’s really sad that American and European kids are so bad at choking on toy missiles and small weapons that they “had to be” omitted, but Japanese kids are more careful with their belongings and probably less sadistic during play. Shooting toy parts into your friend’s eye is just an American game by default whenever there are any spring-loaded toys that shoot things. These toys were treated as precious treasure to most Japanese kids compared to kids in other countries. After all, they got them first, with all their parts and accessories. What we got was the TV show first. No complaints there.

In fact, no complaints about the whole history of the Transformers franchise. I love every bit – maybe not every generation (pass on Beast Wars), but I appreciate that all of the content was made. I’m glad to have witnessed how this concept got fleshed out over time through each and every type of media possibly imaginable. This figure represents an artifact, a missing link of sorts between the older franchise of Diaclone and its newer, sexier successor, the Transformers. Super happy to see the Dicalone homage in the Masterpiece collection, especially the rarer and more iconic pieces like Police Sunstreaker. I’m sure there will be plenty more to come. I’m just not sure which ones are a must have. We’ll have to wait and see.