Lancia Stratos Turbo (Group 5)

The Lancia Stratos HF was built for one purpose: to win the World Rally Championship, which it did in 1974, 1975 and 1976. Bertone and Marcello Gandini gave it a wedge nose, a wraparound windscreen and a wheelbase so short it was famously unstable, and Lancia dropped in a Ferrari Dino V6. Only about 492 were built, just enough for homologation. The Group 5 'Stratos Turbo' variant that raced at Giro d'Italia and in silhouette events added a turbocharger, huge box arches and a rear wing, running around 500 horsepower from a 2.4 litre V6.

Wheeljack is the Autobots' mad scientist, the one whose experiments explode, and the toy's ear-panels flash when he talks in the cartoon. A rally car built to be thrown sideways at trees suits a character defined by controlled recklessness. The Alitalia green-white-red livery is one of motorsport's most famous, and the toy reproduces it closely enough to be identifiable at a glance.

The toy transforms with the car's nose becoming the chest and the rear wing sitting behind the shoulders. Like the other 1984 Car Robots it carries die-cast, and the shoulder-mounted missile launchers are the same style used on Prowl. Wheeljack's head, with its side panels, is one of the few 1984 heads to survive into every subsequent redesign almost unchanged.

Diaclone Car Robot No. 11 'Lancia Stratos Turbo' (Takara, 1983), designed by Koujin Ohno, sold with a Diaclone driver in a deco very close to the eventual Wheeljack.

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

• Claims that Lancia refused a Masterpiece licence are undocumented.