*Note: Lightroom no longer works so these pics are just tweaked on iPhoto. Apologies for the low quality.

Funny that Tracks was a huge narcissist on the TV show, because I always thought Tracks was the best looking bot in the bunch. Top five, for sure. I reckon the idea of making his character into a big ego-tard had to do with him turning into a sexy Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. But oh, what a sexy supercharged muscle car it is. Can you blame him for being so vain about his looks?

This is my original Tracks obtained in 1984 in the clearance bin at Clover, a pre-Kohls type discount department store. The stickers had so much wear so I put on Reprostickers, and of course I couldn’t help but put on the right license plate sticker.

I also added the sticker as a reminder to myself that these are repos, in the event that I ever resold this figure. Wouldn’t want to try to inadvertently scam some poor future generation sucker into thinking these are the originals! But, being that these original G1’s are getting more and more rare to find in good condition, I doubt I’ll ever be able to part with one of my first and favorite Transformers from my childhood collection.

A few things always puzzled me as a young collector in the 80’s. Two things concerning Tracks. First was the mystery of the red transforming Tracks on the back of the 1985 G1 box. It always bothered me until I finally learned from the experts on the canonical Autocon forum (a mere 30 years later) that Tracks was originally released in red as “Takara Diaclone Car Robot No. 21 Corvette Stingray” and in black for the Finnish market. Lucky Finland.

Second, Tracks had a black mask on the BOTH the box art and the catalog for the US release. Naturally, I thought for a long time that I had a defective Tracks. I didn’t know of any fellow Tracks owners when I was a kid to be able to verify this. (Also, same goes for the redheaded Perceptor on the left.)

Of course later as a kid-ult, I learned that some of the product photos used pre-release prototypes with different color variations or the original Japanese releases that came in various colorways. Even as a kid, I was a huge stickler for details such as consistency between marketing and actual product. Well, all the attention to detail paid off (or stole from my wallet, depending on how you see it), because I finally got the closure I had always wanted on some of these “mysteries” from my childhood. Thanks, Internet!

Really though, I’m sure a lot of the other TF collectors who started in the 80s like me were as maniacal or even more obsessive about their collections as I was and still am to this day. Although my passion for trying to re-collect each and every figure I ever liked has waned, I still consider myself a pretty serious collector, with an edited down collection of about 300 bots as of today. Not as bad as some other collectors, but still quite an over-abundance of plastic, die cast metal and cardboard! If I had to whittle down my collection to only my favorite few, however, I’m definitely keeping Tracks. He’s just so damn good looking, in all forms!

Tracks has good proportions, except for those stubby arms. I think that adds to the blocky charm, like a Corgi. Even the back of the bot doesn’t look so bad for a transforming toy. But I’m partial – to me, Tracks can do no wrong. Except that one leg won’t stay up. I hear it’s a common issue with Tracks.

The 80s were full of armed souped-up cars, from spycars like the one in the SpyHunter arcade game and James Bond’s Aston Martin, and futuristic cars like KITT from Knight Rider and the Dodge M4S concept car from the 1984 movie, The Wraith. Adding guns and missiles to already cool looking cars was expected. Now, add wings and missiles to a car from another planet, however, that was pretty Japanese.

I love extra alt modes that are real modes, and not just an “imagine hard that it’s a base” mode. I think even without the wings, Tracks would still make for a great robot, but those wings just make him the extra super duper galactic kind of cool.

Whatever it is, whether the color combo, the alt modes, the armaments – there’s just something about this figure that does it for me and has been since 1985. I can’t even think of Transformers without thinking about this guy! Tracks 4 Life!