Micro Vehicles
I know this isn’t the first appearance of these things, but I found the pic to be a quite clear shot of all eight. It came from an insert called Terror on the Tundra, which I believe dates from 1991. The booklet is loaded with the sort of mail-in items that were still available via Hasbro Direct during the waning years of the Real American Hero series. The production value on these little bits of laser guided marketing were pretty amazing. It’s a shame this sort of thing is gone forever, and a double shame that I didn’t have the foresight to pick up more of this mail-in stuff. I should’ve ordered a WHALE, gosh darnit!
The micro scale is a facet of the GI Joe brand that could have used some fleshing out. I know many folks aren’t keen on venturing outside of the common scales of 12 inch and 3 & 3/4 inch, but a full fledged micro line, with vehicles and even environments could be an interesting concept. Maybe I’m just jonesing on this picture since I’ve been spending more time around vintage Star Wars toys (especially its Micro Collection), but I would plunk down some cash for a line of micro sized in-scale Joe vehicles and playsets.
It’s funny–most of the micro vehicles come from the 1982-85 era, and the Persuader and Warthog are the only post-1986 vehicles included.
These might have been fun had them been available when I was 10 instead of 16. Sadly, the thing I see when I look at that insert is that the Slugger advertised is likely the no cammo version that’s a pita to find.
I too wish I had taken advantage of the mail ins of the time. I bought Joes, had flag points, but just never pulled the trigger.
Were the Micro Vehicles included with figures sold at stores? I only remember them from the Hasbro Direct catalogs. The Micro Figures were, of course, included with regular sized action figures and honestly, they’re probably my favorite free inclusion Hasbro put out with the Joes.
Wasnt there a mudbuster too?
I wonder why Hasbro/Kenner never made more micro stuff for Gijoe in the mid 90’s? Star wars had a very succsessful action fleet and those awful Shumaker Batman films even got their own micro stuff so why not Gijoe?
I’ve been concentrating on vintage Star Wars figures lately, myself. What a coincidence!
I wish Hasbro had never stopped its mail order program and kept the Flag Points going. I never thought of getting a second WHALE after giving away my first one. I did get two APCs and a couple of vehicles which I never bought at retail, such as the Cobra Stinger jeep. I also remember getting the two sets of vehicle drivers, all around 1988 or so. Sweet memories!
Man, I wish I had all these. I would pay…well, not big bucks…maybe medium bucks for them.
*sigh*
-c
They certainly were in the UK!
and can I find a carded example of a UK figure with these vehicles?
NO!
The best I can do is the Mutt cardback at YoJoe: http://www.yojoe.com/action/int/2intcard/euromutt.jpg note the extra bubble on the bottom left compared to the version on Bloodforthebaron http://www.bloodforthebaron.com/toys/006/gijoe/037/index.html
It’s the UK 1991 series they were packed with.
So can anyone show me a carded pic of these ? Yeah I know, harder than finding a carded pic of the UK series with the extra weapons
Yes, I’m sure these came with normal figures in the UK. I have a few in a box somewhere but probably not the full set. I thought I could use them in dioramas either as markers on a map or maybe someone in the motor pool liked making models. They’re almost GI Joe-sized GI Joe toys…!
I remember those Micro Machine Star Wars from Galoob.In fact,Hasbro seems to own the Galoob name now.A new line of GI joe micro vehicles would be great.
A while back on eBay I picked up a set of metal Matchbox style Joe vehicles from circa 1982, including a VAMP, MOBAT, FLAK, MMS, HAL and RAM. (They sure went crazy with the acronyms back then!) They’re nicely details toys, though there’s some wear on them. You can see them here:
http://www.yojoe.com/archive/nottoys/diecasttoys.shtml
I would’ve loved to have more of those made back in the 80s. It’s funny to me that these mini vehicles here include vehicles as old as the MOBAT and APC, considering they were almost ten years old at that point. But by 1991 some of us kids were old school fans, I guess. 🙂
I really got into the diecast metal “mini” vehicles, but I’m dying that they didn’t do any Cobra ones. Still, that micro HISS is calling to me!
I have never seen these before. NEAT-O!
And notice they’re all ground vehicles. I did find the inclusion of the Persuader interesting, along with the Warthog, instead of the Triple T Tank. I would’ve thought the latter was more memorable for Sgt. Slaughter than the former.
Hmmm, is the Persuader generally regarded as GI Joe’s most memorable tank behind the MOBAT?
These micro vehicles were perhaps the most obscure part of the classic (82-94) GI Joe line. Mail order only, display pieces like the micro figures, not like they were mail-order figures or full-sized vehicles. I wonder how many sets of these Hasbro sold.
Cool little Warthog!
If I had had the cash supply, I would have been ordering everything out of this and other inserts. And probably a few of certain things, IF I had had the cash supply. Of everything in this insert, the micro vehicles would have been on the low end of priority, despite the coolness of the novelty.
They’re still cool, but today, they would end up in a baggie in a box if had them.
As far as the potential for a micro-force GIJOE line goes, I would go all out if something similar to the Star Wars Action Fleet was available. The little figures for those Star Wars Action Fleet vehicles were nice, but the vehicles were the emphasis.
Do the same thing with GIJoe, and one could have a huge HISS tank army with a ton of variations, I mean, think of how a VAMP at the “Action Fleet” scale would be something that wouldn’t be much bigger than a Hotwheels or Matchbox car, maybe for less than $4, too.
One thing with the GIJoe micro vehicles that bugged me, and disinterested me, was the lack of scale to each other. The two-seater AWE Striker is bigger than the 9-seater Warthog tank. Inter-line scaling is important to me.