Mexican Black Prowl

MEXICAN BLACK PROWL

When you think of Mexican Transformers and the most famous and recognisable variants, the first item that usually comes to a collector's mind is the black 'Policia' Prowl. With good reason too, this is one of the most distinctly different variants of a very well known character to be found in any selection of variant Transformers anywhere in the world where the toy has not been moulded in a completely different colour. Yes, we have a red European Tracks and a G1 yellow Devastator too, but when you think of how close Iga came to getting this right as far as the template for Prowl goes, and yet how far off they were, the resulting anomaly is one of the crown jewels of the Transformers variant universe.

There are about 4 known varieties of the Mexican Prowl, some with a black crescent on the hood and black doors (V1), one with no crescent on the hood and black doors (V2) and one with the crescent and white doors (V3). There is also apparently an all-black version without a hint of white on it. Versions 1 and 3 have appeared a handful of times in the last 2 decades making the V2 the most common version by a massively long way. There are even intra-version sticker printing differences.

Looking at the back of the box, as with most 1984-based Mexican releases there is no techspec graph and therefore no decoder in the set. A lack of mail-away promotions also meant that the toys did not need Robot Points. This Prowl would have seen release in 1985 at the earliest. Before we look at the contents, let us return to the box front again:

The Iga logo on this particular Mexican Prowl shows a yellow outline, and that is something I recall seeing on other 1984 character Mexican Iga Transformer boxes like Ironhide and Hound. There's another interesting 'error' on this Prowl's box:

The grid pattern covering the box actually goes over the yellow name bar where it says "Prowl". Further to this, in the first picture of the article (box front) you may also see that the Prowl stock photography on the left flap of the box spills over to the front of the box, specifically Prowl's door. This kind of slightly lax graphical and cropping work reminds me a great deal of the pre-rub US Optimus Prime 'error box' where cropping was not done correctly and the stock photography on the bottom spilled over onto the front of the box:

That particular early North American Optimus Prime box has other differences that only the Mexican Prime box shares with it too, so there is some connection between very early Hasbro Transformers box templates and first wave Mexican packaging.

On to the contents:

Notice the much lower quality grey cardboard insert that is very standard for Mexican Transformers. It's interesting to note that Prowl has a proper Fairlady Z bubble when many Mexican cars were packaged with Wheeljack bubbles. The stickersheet is US issue and the missile sprue is the later variety with the little steps between the outer sprue frame and the missiles themselves. This particular specimen was missing its instructions.

We now begin a comparison between a Black Mexican Prowl "Version 2" and the pre-rub US Prowl. The version number depends on who you talk to but the specifics of this particular variant will become clearer as the article goes on. Unfortunately, both of these Prowls have issues, the Mex one has a broken roof and the US one has a cracked rear window. Doesn't really get in the way of the review though.

As I said, I'll be comparing it to the US Prowl so here are the pair in robot mode, then car mode. Mex V2 on the left, US pre-rub on the right:

A lot of differences will be apparent just from those two pictures and they'll be described in more detail as this review goes on. As mentioned on many occasions before, Mexican TFs are notorious for being lower quality than their US counterparts. This Prowl is no exception. The factory stickers look as though they've been printed (badly) on a cheap printer and applied to the toy. I had to examine it closely just to be sure the seller wasn't messing me around. The launchers are especially bad on this toy. I had a hell of a time getting the missiles to click into place, and even then, they seem to point slightly higher than they should.

Ok, the obvious differences. The Mexican version has way more black paint than the US version in a lot of places and instead of white, the Mex Prowl is more cream coloured. The factory stickers are also way different. Instead of "Police", the Mexican version says "Policia". Makes sense. Instead of "Highway Patrol" they read "Patrulla De Caminos". But ONLY on the factory labels. The stickersheet that comes with the toy will still be in English because Iga didn't have their own stickersheets, just unique factory labels.

Here's a picture of the 2 Prowls and their differing factory labels on the doors:

Notice something else about the doors other than the stickers? That's right, on this particular Mexican Prowl (Version 2) the doors are actually black, whereas the US toy has white doors. A pic from the back demonstrating this (and the lack of a roof on the Mex version):

Next up, one of my absolute favourite features of this toy. The black head. This makes enough of a difference for me to almost class the two as different characters. A close-up comparison of the black Mex head (left) and the white/red US head (right):

Another thing you may have noticed in that last picture is the lack of a black crescent on the hood of the Mexican Prowl. The version 2 (of 4) Mexican Prowl is the only version of Prowl to NOT have the crescent. A pic to illustrate:

A distinct lack of a curved black thing on the hood. The crescent is something that actually makes the TF police cars stand out a bit more and I like it a lot. Probably one of my only gripes about this particular version of the Mex Prowl.

Other things to note in the above pic, the section of hood directly above the wheels (the section that folds under the hood when Prowl is in robot mode) is black on the Version 2 Mex Prowl. The US Prowl's more uniform colour scheme means that it has white wheeltops/hood section (as you can see I really have no idea what to call them!). Conversely, the grills/vents on the hood are painted black on the US Prowl but are left unpainted on the Mex Version.

Also, there is a difference between the factory sticker that goes on the section behind Prowl's head. That would be the section on the hood with the blue shield (and yellow star). The difference between the two stickers should be clear in the above pic. The Mex shield and star have a much more noticeable black outline.

In the above picture, more differences can be seen. The Mex Prowl has black hands, shoulders and forearms, whereas the US Prowl has white hands and shoulders.

Also, look at the roof on both toys. The T-Bar section on the US Prowl has black outlines, but the Mex prowl has no black paint anywhere on the roof.

Another thing you may notice is that the sirens are not identical. That will be much clearer in this next picture:

It appears as if the Mexican sirens actually have a larger (deeper) red translucent plastic section, and also there is a gap in the central silver piece of the sirens that the US sirens don't have. Now you'd be forgiven for thinking that someone broke the original sirens and replaced them. This holds some weight as the sirens actually look like they've been glued on as there is some excess around the sirens. But, I've done some checking around and every other picture I can find of Mexican Prowl, even different versions, have the same kind of sirens. So it is a definite variation. Ginrai informs me that they are Ratchet sirens, and indeed they are.

Also apparent in the above pic is the lack of a black crescent on the Mex version, the "Policia" vs "Police" factory bumper sticker, and in addition to those you can see that the section just underneath the black bumper is cream on the Mex Prowl but black on the US toy.

Basically, the US colour scheme is top half white, bottom half black. The Mex colour scheme on this particular version is cream and black in patches. Not much uniformity, and that is apparent with the rear section. The whole rear section of the Mexican Prowl (all versions) is black, with the exception of the rear windows. They can be seen in more detail here:

Another small difference is that the US Prowl's rear windows are clear plastic, with white paint on only one face of the windows. The white (well...cream) paint on the Mex version is on the thin section just below the rear window section too. Following? In fact, that whole section on the Mex toy is a lot thinner, flimsier and even easier to damage than the US version, and that's really saying something!

For a Mexican toy, that's a strange copyright. This toy obviously has Iga manufacturing values written all over it, and was no doubt assembled in Mexico, yet the "Japan" section of the copyright has not been blocked out whereas many Mex TFs do have a block. The amazing thing is, having recently acquired another Mexican V2 Prowl, I noticed that the copyright on this one DOES have the block!

So that's another intra-Prowl variation in Mexico, and probably an indication of exactly where this particular manufactured specimen fits into Iga's overall production timeline for Prowl.

It's a lovely lovely toy. Prowl is a lovely toy, and despite the questionable quality control, the Mex Prowl is absolutely first rate in my opinion. The colour scheme in car mode may be patchy for this specific version but I think it looks the business in robot mode. Black suits him.