Jada Toys is coming in hot with the latest addition to their Hollywood Cars line with their nostalgia inducing set of Robotech-inspired cars! As a long-time fan of Robotech and Macross, these cars are a great way to expand your Robotech collection without breaking the bank.
Robotech was originally several Japanese animes set in the Macross universe that were repackaged and modified to be the more American-accessible Robotech series in the ’80s.
The first thing you’ll notice about these cars, is the very cool box art on the front, sides, and interior featuring the pilots and a battle scene against the Zentradi. Although it would have been cool to have custom interior art that correlated with each pilot as well, the standardized anime art across all of the cars is very reminiscent of ’80s toys. The cars as packaged are great for display without even opening the boxes. The figures themselves are die-cast and stand at 2.75″ tall. The cars are also die-cast and are 1:24 scale 20202 Toyota Supras with painted details inspired by each pilots personal fighter from Robotech (who doesn’t love that seeing that Skull Squadron detail).
The back of the boxes are not quite as visually interesting; however, each box back is customized and includes a mini bio for each of the pilots including their birthdate, gender, height, weight, eye and hair color, and their original Japanese name.
On to the cars! The cars themselves are 1:24 scale die-cast 2020 Toyota Supras and are fully painted. The hoods open to show plenty of engine detail.
The doors also open to show off an excellent level of interior detail including a gas and brake pedals, a full display of gauges, and even the computer nav system! Unfortunately, because the figures are die-cast and only meant for display next to the cars, they can’t actually be placed into the cars.
While I only received the Rick and Roy cars for review, the collection actually features four cars and pilots, adding Max and Miriya Sterling to the mix. While Rick is the main character of the show, with Roy arguable being second, Max and Miriya were always my favorites (and I adore the styling of their cars as well), so I plan to add those to my collection as soon as possible!
One thing to note about the packaging in the event, like me, you want to remove them, you will need a small Philips screwdriver as both the car and figure have two screws each that goes through a mounting plate beneath the cardboard and into the car and figure to keep them securely in place.
To further illustrate how nostalgic these cars have made me, I present you with a very deep cut. In the ’90s, Tomy produced a line of mini R/C cars called Bit Char-G. While they did do a few licensed cars (like Speed Racer and Lupin), they were mostly just a handful of standard cars (including, coincidentally, the Toyota Supra). I had the idea to trick one of mine out by giving it a Roy Fokker Macross custom paint job. I used some spare decals from a model kit I’d built to add the Skull Squadron, UN Spacy logo, and rivet details to it. It was my favorite R/C car and still sits on my desk to this day (even though the rubber tires disintegrated long ago)!
If you are a Robotech or Macross fan, and enjoy great looking themed cars, I can’t recommend these enough!
Note: I was sent these cars for review purposes but all thoughts and opinions above are my own.
