Review – Gobots Scales (1985)

Tonka’s GoBots toys of the eighties (find at Amazon.com*) range from excellent transforming robot toys to the cheapest of the cheap transforming robot toys imaginable (GoBots Bubble Man review). Tonka adapted Japanese transforming robot toys to the American market and, when necessary to sales, created designs of their own.

That’s where Scales enters the picture.

Packaging

Scales comes in a small little box that features delightfully bad airbrush artwork showing the toy in car and robot monster modes. The art may be cheap and kinda bad, but it’s still pretty fantastic and I love how the box shows off the toy with a mix of original artwork and a photo of the vehicle mode.

Surprisingly, the box sides show two other GoBots toys. I say surprisingly because it feels to me like the design could cause confusion on toy store shelves if the box is displayed side out. Toy merchandising was a perfected art in 1985, though, so there’s a pretty good chance the box was stacked on shelves in a way that we couldn’t be at all confused.

Vehicle Mode

At 7-inches long, the Scales race car mode is a pretty hefty chunk of plastic that looks great. The design is a bit chunky and toy-like, but the plastic is a top quality and the colors are bright and fun. The scale texture on the car’s numbers is a nice touch and just enough of the robot head shows in the front of the car to give us another hint that this is a snake-themed toy.

Transformation Design

Scales has a friction motor and auto-transforms when revved up and let go. I know it’s a gimmick, but as a fan of the Transformers Jumpstarters and Battlechargers who am I to not enjoy the Scales transformation design?

Robot Mode

Once transformed, Scales “stands” 5-inches tall. I say stands in quotes because, as you can see, it’s basically just the race car stretched out and revealing the snake head. There are no arms or legs; Scales simply rolls around on all four wheels and looks pretty goofy. I like it, but I can admit that this is one hell of a silly robot design.

Closing Thoughts

Tonka’s GoBots toys of the eighties (find at Amazon.com*) are generally goofy, but Scales stands out from the pack as one of the oddest designs in the line. And that makes it special and fun, and I’m completely happy that I grabbed this guy when I spotted him in Vegas a few weeks ago. Fun toy, but not so fun that any of you should chase him down.