Transformers
In 1991, Hasbro took over Tonka, and thus the Gobot trademarks; the molds for the action figures remain the property of Bandai, having only been leased to Tonka, and some were reissued in 1993 for the European Robo Machines line. Since then, these have been used several times—a character called Gobots was released in 1993, a range of figures in 1995 were called the Go-Bots, and Hasbro subsidiary Playskool issued a line named Transformers: Gobots in 2002. To this date there have been a few exclusives referencing GoBots, but they have all been recolors of other Transformer molds as opposed to new figures. Examples of this are Transformers Movie 2007 Scouts : Fracture (aka Crasher), Backtrack (aka MR-37/Night Ranger; unreleased) and Revenge of the Fallen's Scouts Deadlift (aka MR-34/Spoons) and Reverb (though resembling Dart in color scheme, his transformation may also reference Cy-Kill). Also Botcon 2007 Bugbite, an off-white repaint of Classics Bumblebee, was released as the 2nd Bug Bite toy in Transformers. The first Bug Bite was a Japanese-exclusive white repaint of Generation 1 Bumblebee which retained Bug Bites VW Bug vehicle mode. The white color change was due to Bumblebee and Bug Bite sharing the colors yellow and black in their original competing releases.
The name Leader-1 was reused for Transformers Armada Megatrons mini-con in 2002.
While Hasbro has used current toy technology to update their G1 Transformer characters over the years, it is unlikely that Gobots will receive similar treatment, as the molds—and thus, the original character designs—belong to Bandai.
In 1995 a line of Transformers called Go-Bots (small, Matchbox sized car Transformers which had racing axles) were released, including Bumblebee, Double Clutch, High Beam, Ironhide, Megatron, Mirage, Optimus Prime, Soundwave, Sideswipe, and Frenzy. Of the 6 molds produced, 15 Go-Bot characters were released (2 of the original 6 figures have tooling variations gang-molding and the addition of the Optimus and Megatron cars), including the 1995 BotCon convention exclusive figure, Nightracer (a recoloring of Go-Bot Bumblebee). Subsequent uses of these molds were renamed Spy Changers.
Gearhead was used to demonstrate the Hasbro Go-Bots line at Toy Fair 1995. They were described by the pitch-man as "The all new, most mind-blowing, laser-slashing, robot-bashing product line ever!"
Read more about this topic: Gobots