I'm not sure exactly why, but when I first read about Car Robots early in 2000, I was extremely excited, and to this day, it is still fun in both Toy & Animated form. In fact I think my love of this series has only grown over the years instead of decline.
Botcon 2000 in Ft. Wayne Indiana was the only time I traveled a long distance to go to a convention. I had paid ahead of time to get the exclusives Apelinq and Shockarackt. Upon getting them I was able to quickly straight up trade for the brand new releases of JRX & Baldigus (a decision I would absolutely do again, no regrets), even though I kept them MISB and never opened them, I was more into that back then.
I also was able to get Raw VHS copies of the first 8 episodes of Car Robots. Torrenting was in its infancy back then, and I didn't trust it, and of course video sites didn't really exist. I was able o see the first 2 episodes of BM S2 early as someone uploaded them using apple QuickTime. But watching pixilated versions on a tiny section of my monitor that took like an hour to download wasn't great. Plus I knew BM was going in a direction I didn't care for, so Car Robots was very refreshing.
Later that same summer I went to SDCC and got Fire Convoy and Gigatron. I kept them MISB as well. Later in 2001 when the English Dub and RiD was released in the U.S. I got Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, the Build Team, and team Bullet Train. Opened them all and played with them. They were amazingly fun. I was able to get a MISB Build King later on from a local collector. I just wanted all the "combiners" from both iterations of the show, and the faction leaders.
I never got any of the Hasbro variants of "Ruination" because the colors were never animation accurate (and they released 3 of them
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
).
Sadly I sold my whole collection in 2007. But I was able to get the whole series on DVD. There is an inexpensive Malaysian set that is great, better than tracking down the UK R2 DVD which are long OOP and super expensive. Of course both the English dub of RiD, and fan subbed Car Robots are free to watch on Youtube now in full, until such time if ever Takara, Hasbro, Studio Gallop, or Disney notices and decides to have them taken down, at least I'll still have my DVD.
When the final Unite Warrior release was announced as Baldigus, that was a no brainer for me, I have it along with all the others. I'd definitely pick up modern interpretations of any of the other combiners as well, just not sure how they could be improved upon despite being 20+ years old now.
Bucket/Want List: Botcon 2016 Customization Class Ratchet (G2 Deco), or Customization Class Ratchet (Marvel Comics Deco) **would also be willing to pay for an Unpainted Botcon 2016 Ratchet, TT Legends Fortress Head (only) with working Electronics
Wish List of Modern Combiners: Road Caesar, Monstructor & Dinoking (proper size to fiction), Landcross, Guard City, Battle Gaia, & G2 Defensor. Wish List of Titans:Metrotitan,Majin Zarak