Oh, Greece....

Land of ...um....Gyros!?

Greek exclusive Transformers: licensed by the company EL GRECO, known to toy collectors for unique versions of my little pony and licenced by HASBRO. There don't seem to be too many Greek made transformers as the EL GRECO company had a life which ended at the early 80s(circa 1985). This is one of the only series of Greek Transformers found so far, which cosists of 7 different CLASSIC HEROIC(mini vehicles is not mentioned). Their names (as the whole card is written in Greek) are given in Greek. A translation to English(and the equivalent to the international name) follows:

AHTIPITOS(UNBEATABLE)=WARPATH
KIRIARHOS(DOMINATOR)=COSMOS
KERAVNOS(THUNDER)=POWERGLIDE
AGELIAFOROS(MESSENGER)=BEACHCOMBER
EGEFALOS(BRAIN)=BRAWN
GIGANTAS(GIANT)=HUFFER
THALASSOLIKOS(SEEWOLF)=SEASPRAY

It is interesting to note that these Minibots all have pretty obvious color variations unique to Greece. For example, Huffer is more red than orange. Powerglide is much lighter red (similar to the Takara reissue). Cosmos is a much lighter green. Martin notes: "The yellow is much more "pale" on Seaspray than the warm yellow on the US. Stickers have metallic base like the US, but the print is runny/blurry. There's no rub sign, and the "Mold flash" bits are in the exact same spots, so I'm guessing that these were cast from the real molds (and not bootlegged).Full copyright under the feet with block over JAPAN, and Hasbro on the front of the card, but nothing on the back."

It is interesting to note that Brawn's head is *not* remolded for this line. It only appears that way, because of the color (or lack therof). There are two mold versions of Brawn in the US tf line; the face with the removable eye visor, and one where the entire face pops out. Because of a missing silver paint app, the difference is quite a bit more noticable on the Greek Brawn(which is a version 2 face) (pic).

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Note that, in addition to these Minibots, the only other exclusively-Greek-packaged Tfs known at this time are the Devastator and Defensor Giftsets. Eric adds: "One of the really noticable differences is the Greek Devastator. The robots are molded in a totaly different shade of green, and are stamped Takara made in China. The accessories are all G2 purple color, and he comes with funky missiles, that don't look like the ones he came with here or those strange little black rubber tipped things he came with in Italy." See the World Giftset Listing for information on those.