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This is one of the busiest pieces of Voltron, behind only the Strato Weapons Module. It forms the hips of the robot, and is pretty much a block. The cockpit's too small and the wheels are hardly visible. It's about the only unit that totally fails to convince. There is one additional detail - the silver panel flips up, and has a radar array moulded on the underside. However, this also reveals the lever used to release the legs when separating Voltron, and isn't really worth it. The door itself can work lose quite easily, meaning it won't stand up in vehicle mode, or stay shut in robot form. Sometimes just pushing in the thin metal panel holding it in place can help. From the combined point of view, the block actually contains a fairly complex spring-based mechanism that connects to the midriff and the thighs - this can be prone to jamming. |
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One of the two forearm pieces. The origins are fairly obvious, thanks to the clear fist on the front, but some effort has gone into masking it. Popy haven't made a bad job of it looking like a futuristic truck, and it's just about passable. I'd rather have a couple of the vehicles looking less than excellent on their own that lose the detail work on the fists. The fists can fire - however, this means a lot were lost by kids in the eighties, and the connecting hook is very weak. Not quite sure what rotates about it, though. |
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Obviously this is the rough mirror of the above. Once more, Popy have put some effort into making it look different, with red instead of blue paint apps (these actually correspond with the elbow joints on the Advanced Recon Helicopters for the 'correct' layout, though mechanically the forearms are interchangeable in both the robot and combined team modes) and squarer edges. |
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While the Land Team gets three of the most generic looking units, some payback comes from the All-Terrain Space Vehicles. These form Voltron's feet, and are memorably moderately realistic 4x4 trucks. This one is very sharp-looking in a killer yellow-with-black scheme, though detail isn't superb - painted wheel hubs would have been nice, for one. The connection groove, while plainly visible, isn't as obvious as one would think, either. The All-Terrain Space Vehicles both have a fifth wheel at the back, a chromed stabiliser. These don't seem to affect Voltron's stability whether they're deployed or not, due to the wheelbase of the things. |
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Once more Popy have put some real effort into making this one look different. The shape is squarer, and with increased freedom from the nature of the feet (which basically need to be about the same height and shape, and have a connector groove, but require little else to be the same other than for aesthetic purposes) they do a good job without throwing out the symmetry unreasonably. And if the other All-Terrain Space Vehicle had a killer scheme, this one is simply excellent, the colours neatly inverted. |
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Once more, this looks like a bunch of vehicles thrown together. It does deserve a little more respect than the Strato Fighter for at least trying, with extra connectors included on the Jet Radar Fighter so it can mount on top of the All-Terrain Space Vehicles. However, it still doesn't look good, and more than any other configuration throws the scale issues with the set into sharp relief. While these can be ignored easily on the robot form, the comparison between the ATSVs and the carriers isn't good - the former could just be massive 4x4s (though the engraved doors would indicate otherwise), but otherwise it's impossible to believe someone could fit in both them and the carriers (which look like small-scale reproductions of very large vehicles). There's also the question of what the Hell it's meant to be anyway… The Land Team set is probably the most expensive to buy, due to the fists being both fragile and easy to lose, and the complicated mechanism inside the Jet Radar Fighter which is a prime candidate for seizure. The corresponding Japanese Rickrugger set also included Dairugger XV's sword, omitted from the Western release for no readily apparent reason and despite its' prominent use in the cartoon, and is thus highly prized by Voltron collectors. Thankfully, a knock-off I bought included a blunt, but adequate, version. |
