A complicated one tonight, when I first saw these they were under the
Motron brand and while I took time to study the packaging and note that they used
Roco-
Mintanks figures for the illustrations on the cards I didn't buy them. A few years later I saw this and bought it, although by that time I had also corralled a few loose bits and pieces in a tub...
Some sort of dozer contraption called '№ 9074c - Power Shovel'. The inset top right shows a very good copy of the driver from the
Tomy Zoid's mechanical dinosaur sets, while the bottom shot shows the '
BW [Bundeswehr]
Troops Marching' from
Roco, painted yellow and running around doing admin stuff!
Both the use of the
Roco figures and the inclusion of the
Tomy driver give an overall size of around HO guage (1:87th scale) for these sets, while the sets at the bottom are nearer 35mm.
The loose bits I've also collected, there are various bits that have the familiarity of having been seen elsewhere, not least the 'knuckles' either side of the cab/cockpit. Again a shot of the
Tomy rip-off driver, or were they both buying him in from another sub-supplier?
I think I've seen three or four front-unit designs now and about 6 add-on items of heavy-equipment or weapons, but the follow-on unit seems to be the same basic item each time. Although the basic units are the same, the front units have most of their items glued-on while the rear unit's are all detachable.
Also carrying the
Multimac trade mark is this
Ocean Discovery box; Item No. 92884W - Octopathfinder Set', which is more of a construction set, half-way between
Lego Bionicles and the
Tomy Zoids. This figure (identified by Bill over at
Moonbase) also bears a resemblance to something, but I can't put my finger on it...Cylons?
If you click on '
Silverlit' in the tag list you will get a partial list of the other items in both ranges, there used to be a whole list of
Motron stuff somewhere on the Wibbly Wobbly Way (Toy Chest? Toy Locker?), and one day I'll sort the list out properly.
So
Silverlit seems - on the face of it - to be the modern equivalent of the old unbranded hollow-horse guys frantically copying
Giant, but targeting a more mainstream company (
Tomy), or are they a (one of many)
Tomy/Takara subsidiary?