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The Tornado Minibot was one of several minibots released as merchandise. It was one of the second generation minibots, first released in 2002 as part of Box 6 with Firestorm 3 and Gemini.

Features[]

TornadoDiagonalLeft1

The Tornado minibot, right-hand side

Like many of the other minibots, this toy does not feature any moving weaponry. The minibot is based on the Robot Wars Extreme and Series 5 model of Tornado, as it is armed with the spinning drum weapon at the front. The detailing on the top of the robot is largely accurate to that of the real robot, including the two grey pieces either side of the weapon and textured tyres as well.

Releases[]

Pack5

Tornado in its three-pack

Minibox2

Tornado in its five-pack

The Minibot was released in a three-pack with Firestorm 3 and Gemini, as well as in a five-pack with Sgt. Bash, Shunt and again, Firestorm and Gemini. As this Minibots pack was originally sold exclusively through Argos, these three Minibots quickly became some of the rarest toys in the merchandise line, both at the time of their original release and the modern day.

"It was available as part of a set of three including Gemini and Firestorm, and then as part of a set of 5 from Argos. It's a very hard item to find, and recently one sold on Ebay for over £18... There was an agreement with Argos whereby they sold them exclusively for 6 months - and then dropped them from the catalogue. We understand this stops them being sold by any other shops. (There was a rumour in early 2004 that a 2 pack was to be produced including Tornado, but none have materialised...)."
— Andrew Marchant in 2004 on the rarity of the toy[1]

Differences to the real robot[]

TornadoMinibot

Isometric view of the Tornado minibot.

Tornado background

The Extreme and Series 5 version of Tornado

While there are many similarities, the Tornado minibot is inaccurate in some aspects. Due to the pullback motor and other aspects of the toy, the dimensions of the Tornado minibot differ from the real machine, by proportionally increasing the robot's height, and shortening the robot's width, creating a long-rectangle shaped toy in comparison to the more square-shaped competitor.

Tornado's spinning drum is static on the toy, and is proportionately taller than that of the real weapon, to accommodate for the toy's greater height. The minibot toy also is not invertible, with the tyres protruding from the top being purely cosmetic. The clear polycarbonate sections in the top of the real robot, which are replicated in other Tornado toys, is not replicated on the minibot. The removable link decal on the rear of this iteration of Tornado is also not present on this toy.

Trivia[]

TornadoFront

Front view of the Tornado minibot

TornadoRear

Rear view of the Tornado minibot

  • After purchasing a Minibot toy of his own robot, Andrew Marchant remarked on the Tornado website how detailed he found the model to be.

References[]

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