Toyota Hilux 4WD (N40)

Toyota added four-wheel drive to the Hilux in 1979 with the N40 generation, and it changed the truck's reputation permanently. Leaf springs all round, a live front axle, a 2.0 or 2.2 litre petrol four or a 2.2 diesel, and a body-on-frame structure built to be repaired rather than replaced. It is the vehicle that later became a byword for indestructibility, and by the early 1980s it was already the default light truck across Asia, Africa and Australia.

Trailbreaker and Hoist share one tooling with different rear-bed equipment. Trailbreaker carries a camper shell and is written as the Autobots' force-field generator, the one who absorbs punishment on behalf of everyone else, so a slow, heavy, unglamorous truck fits exactly. Hoist has a crane arm on the bed and is the team's maintenance engineer, working alongside Grapple. Both bios lean on the same idea: these are the support crew, not the racers.

The toy converts by folding the bed and cab in a way that leaves the truck's front bumper across the robot's shins. Trailbreaker's canopy becomes a backpack; Hoist's crane folds down behind the shoulders. Both have substantial die-cast content and both feel closer to a 1970s Japanese chogokin toy than to the sleek Diaclone sports cars released alongside them.

Diaclone Car Robot No. 6 'Hilux 4WD Wrecker Type' and the camper-canopy variant (Takara, 1982 to 1983), the source of Hoist and Trailbreaker respectively, sold with Diaclone drivers.

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

• Whether the donor is the N40 or the preceding N30 generation Hilux is argued in collector circles; the 4WD variant points to N40.