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The Plunderbird Minibot was one of several minibots released as merchandise. Despite officially being called only the "Plunderbird Minibot", the toy is clearly based around Plunderbird 5, which competed in Robot Wars Extreme and Series 5.

Features[]

Plunderbird5Diagonal2

The Plunderbird 5 minibot, with weapon rested

Plunderbird 5's "Plunderthocker" claw weapon could move slightly, opening and closing to such a small degree that it wouldn't be able to grapple onto most of the other minibots whilst keeping all of its wheels flat on the surface, and the weapon would naturally rest in its 'down' position. Nevertheless, the toy could use its wedge shape to drive under other minibots.

Releases[]

Plunderbird5Side

Side view of the minibot

Pack6

Plunderbird in its packaging

As part of the second wave of minibot toys, the Plunderbird minibot was only ever released in a three-pack with Dominator and Wild Thing, with the latter also being exclusive to this set.

In the modern day, this makes Plunderbird one of the more uncommon minibots to purchase online, especially compared to the first wave of toys, although the model is still more common than the rarest minibots, such as Firestorm and Gemini.

Differences to the real robot[]

Plunderbird5front

Front view of the minibot

Plunderbird5

The real Plunderbird 5 in Extreme

While the colouring and decals are mostly accurate to the real robot, there are numerous scaling issues with this toy. For example, the claw weapon is very much oversized when compared to its real life counterpart. Also, the minibot was designed in such a way that the robot was much longer than it was wide, unlike the real robot. This is likely due to the pullback mechanism that was universal across all minibot toys.

Trivia[]

Plunderbird5rear

Rear view of the minibot

  • The Plunderbird Minibot not being named the "Plunderbird 5 Minibot" is inconsistent with some other minibots which did include a number at the end of the robot's name, such as Chaos 2 and X-Terminator 2, but consistent with other cases such as Firestorm and Dominator.
  • Plunderbird is one of only three minibots to never be released in any packs other than its original three-pack, alongside Wild Thing and Mega Morg.

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