Chevrolet Corvette C3 Stingray

The third-generation Corvette ran from 1968 to 1982, the longest single generation in the car's history. Its 'coke bottle' body came from Larry Shinoda's Mako Shark II show car, and by the 1980 to 1982 cars the emissions era had done its work: a 5.7 litre small-block V8 producing around 190 horsepower, T-top roof panels, and a soft rear treatment quite unlike the sharp early C3s. It sold enormously well regardless, because the shape was the point.

Tracks is written as vain, aloof and obsessed with his own appearance, an Autobot who genuinely enjoys being looked at. The Corvette is the American equivalent of Sideswipe's Countach, and the flame decal on the bonnet, unusually for a G1 car, is not a licensing dodge but a character note. He is also one of the few Autobots with a third mode: the toy's doors flip up into wings for a flight mode the cartoon used constantly.

The mould is one of the few Diaclone Car Robots not designed by Koujin Ohno; Hiroyuki Obara handled it. It is a triple-changer in practice if not in marketing, with a die-cast chassis and a black-window canopy that dates it precisely to the last years of the C3. Masterpiece MP-25 Tracks (2015) reproduced all of it at collector scale with an official GM licence.

Takara Diaclone 'Corvette Stingray' Car Robot (1983 to 1984), designed by Hiroyuki Obara rather than Koujin Ohno, and one of the last Car Robots developed before the Transformers rebrand. Tracks is a redeco of it.

Fan lore about these vehicles is unusually unreliable. Where a popular claim does not survive checking, it is recorded here rather than repeated.

• The precise model year of the donor C3 is inferred from the body details rather than documented.