I guess I've ordered too many toys when I totally forget that they exist. (In my defense, this guy went up for pre-order back in October 2021. A lot of stuff has happened since then.) I'm sure I got a shipping notification about this guy at some point, but I totally forgot about it so I was surprised to see him in the mailbox today. In fact, I had no idea this was even a Hasbro toy until I opened the shipping box up, since they stopped using the mailer boxes with the Hasbro Pulse logo on them a long time ago.

So, I guess he's my first official Legacy toy! The white label is the same as the other Hasbro Selects releases, but the trade dress on the box has been updated. We've gone from a mostly plain brown box to a box that's slathered in ink, so it's mostly black, and the CAD Drawing of Lift-Ticket is inverted so the "pen lines" are the only visible parts of the brown box. The box and instructions prominently feature the new Transformers: Legacy logo, and the graphics for the interior flap have been updated, eschewing the old Siege military badges for some random tech greeblies. It's also a smaller box than a lot of Hasbro Selects releases, basically only big enough for Lift-Ticket in robot mode and that's it.

This is a toy of based on the Diaclone Car Robo Wrecker Type, a pre-Transformers release that originally didn't make it into the final batch of toys sold by Hasbro. The name Lift-Ticket was borrowed from G.I. Joe, and was previously used for the BotCon redeco of Generations Hoist from 2015.

In robot mode, Lift-Ticket is predominantly red, replacing Hoist's green, with yellow as a secondary color. (The 1982 Diaclone toy actually had black kneecaps, but the knees on Earthrise Hoist were surely gang-molded with his wings and backpack, so all those parts are the same color for Lift-Ticket..) He's a redeco of Hoist from head to toe, including the face sculpt. He's got yellow eyes, though, making him look more like a G1-era toy (the whole "Autobots have blue eyes" thing was invented for the cartoon, and almost none of the 1984-85 toy releases conformed to this idea).

He comes with the same fat laser accessory as Hoist, which you can plug into his fist if you want. Given that both Trailbreaker and Hoist have gun-arms in the cartoon, I think it makes more sense to let Lift-Ticket keep both hands in order to visually distinguish him a bit from the other two. The gun can be mounted to any of his C.O.M.B.A.T. ports, like the side of his arm or the side of his leg, as a possible alternative.

Transformation is the same as Hoist, of course, though the instructions don't include his "bridge mode" this time (which was arguably a character-specific thing for Hoist, meant to pay homage to "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court"). Lift-Ticket gets a new deco in the form of the word "WRECKER" prominently emblazoned on either of his doors. You might suspect this is meant to pay tribute to the Wreckers from the Marvel UK comics, but in fact this is part of the original Diaclone deco. It was four different stickers on the 1982 toy, but here it was realized as a slick tampograph application, which pleases me immensely.

Annoyingly, only three of the wheels on my toy are painted! They all have a metallic silver paint application on the hubcaps except for the front passenger side wheel. I buy a lot of toys, so I suppose the statistical odds that I'll eventually get a factory defect are higher than most (I think the last time I had something like this happen was with Universe Ratchet from 2008). It's still kind of bothersome, though.

In some ways it seems redundant for the Autobots to have two tow trucks on the team. But, when you think about it, they eventually had two police cars (Prowl and Streetwise) and two ambulances (Ratchet and First Aid) and two fire trucks (Inferno and Hot Spot) so I guess it's okay. Besides, with most of the Autobots being cars, the odds that more than one of them would need a tow at the same time would be pretty high, especially after a heated battle with the Decepticons. (Besides, if Hoist break down, who is supposed to tow *him* back to the base for repairs?)

The toy is still available to order from Hasbro Pulse right now for $22.99, for anyone who hasn't yet ordered but may be interested.

Zob (I'm going to write to Hasbro about my defective toy just to see if they actually make an attempt to address the problem or not)

On Saturday, February 12, 2022 at 11:32:27 AM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:

<snip>

....He's still on my computer desk, in vehicle mode, and every time I catch him out of the corner of my eye, I think he's G1 Hot Rod.

Every. Single. Time.

Zob

On Saturday, February 12, 2022 at 11:32:27 AM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> I'm going to write to Hasbro about my defective toy just to see if they actually make an attempt to address the problem or not.

So, they made me jump through some hoops (they wanted the vendor number on the toy; the date code; the air velocity of an unladen swallow; etc.) but in the end they did promise to send me a Transformer of equal or greate value by way of apology. They said if they didn't have another Lift-Ticket available, they'd pick something else out for me.

This is what I received today:

https://tinyurl.com/mdmraj64

I don't mean to seem ungrateful, because they did send me something for free, and they absolutely didn't have to. But I have zero use for this thing. I don't even have small kids any longer. My son might have enjoyed this about a decade ago, but not now. I guess I can try to find a retailer who carries it and try to get store credit or something. But I hear stories about people who complained and got, like, a Throne of the Primes set for free, and I wonder how I managed to draw the short straw this time.

I'm really not upset. It's honestly kind of funny. Part of me thinks maybe they're deliberately trolling me (I have something of a reputation), though of course I'll never know for sure.

Zob (filing this under "well, THAT happened")