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Toynami Announces Masterpiece Cyclones at Toyfair


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The Toynami Alphas had widespread minor quality problems which were annoying. (These problems aren't exactly 'quality CONTROL issues'. They're 'fit and finish' issues that are probably due to flaws in the design.) Other than that, Toynami does not have a quality problem. Period. I own all of the MPC VF-1's, 2 Voltrons, many of the superposeables, 2 of the 1/100 VF-1's, and all of the Alphas, so I know whereof I speak. Also, I'm an avid Japanese toy collector, and I own many toys made by Bandai, TakaraTomy, Aoshima, Yamato, Max Factory, Kotobukiya, Kaiyodo, etc. Although the Toynamis are not without glitches, overall they compete fairly well with the Japanese collector toys. Compared to Yamato's recent quality problems, Toynami is practically golden.

I don't know where the 'Toynami quality sucks' meme got started. I think some folks had to justify their hatred of Toynami somehow, so they invented crap like 'plastic feels cheap' for the MPC VF-1's. If someone has only bought the MPC alphas, then I could understand their disappointment. Otherwise, it makes no sense. I'm hoping Toynami will put all of this to rest by continuing to release good quality toys in the coming year. But if a person is religiously inclined to hate everything Toynami, then no amount of physical evidence will change their mind.

Look folks, no one is forcing anyone to like certain toys. If you don't like the looks of the MPC toys, that's fine. Those cyclones look a bit mis-proportioned to me, too. But 'looks' are not the same as 'quality'. Unless Toynami screws up like they did with the Alphas (and no toy company is immune to screw-ups, not even Bandai), I have every confidence that the Cyclones will be high quality items.

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Like I say, I can totally understand that people who only bought alphas would be reluctant to buy more Toynami stuff. The alphas were a big disappointment to me personally.

That said, it's a little like refusing to move to the U.S. after visiting Detroit. A single data point isn't a good basis to judge. :)

Probably the smart thing to do would be to wait for a few fools like me to buy one, and then read the reviews. I promise I'll be honest if it sucks. B))

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The Toynami Alphas had widespread minor quality problems which were annoying. (These problems aren't exactly 'quality CONTROL issues'. They're 'fit and finish' issues that are probably due to flaws in the design.) Other than that, Toynami does not have a quality problem. Period. I own all of the MPC VF-1's, 2 Voltrons, many of the superposeables, 2 of the 1/100 VF-1's, and all of the Alphas, so I know whereof I speak. Also, I'm an avid Japanese toy collector, and I own many toys made by Bandai, TakaraTomy, Aoshima, Yamato, Max Factory, Kotobukiya, Kaiyodo, etc. Although the Toynamis are not without glitches, overall they compete fairly well with the Japanese collector toys. Compared to Yamato's recent quality problems, Toynami is practically golden.

I don't know where the 'Toynami quality sucks' meme got started. I think some folks had to justify their hatred of Toynami somehow, so they invented crap like 'plastic feels cheap' for the MPC VF-1's. If someone has only bought the MPC alphas, then I could understand their disappointment. Otherwise, it makes no sense. I'm hoping Toynami will put all of this to rest by continuing to release good quality toys in the coming year. But if a person is religiously inclined to hate everything Toynami, then no amount of physical evidence will change their mind.

Look folks, no one is forcing anyone to like certain toys. If you don't like the looks of the MPC toys, that's fine. Those cyclones look a bit mis-proportioned to me, too. But 'looks' are not the same as 'quality'. Unless Toynami screws up like they did with the Alphas (and no toy company is immune to screw-ups, not even Bandai), I have every confidence that the Cyclones will be high quality items.

How is the lack of fit and finish not a quality issue? These are transforming toys... shouldn't the pieces fit together whether by design or manufacture? I can see that my distaste for the scale and proportion would be nitpicking, but when it looks like a mess after I transform it correctly, I would say that that is a serious reduction in quality.

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Probably the smart thing to do would be to wait for a few fools like me to buy one, and then read the reviews. I promise I'll be honest if it sucks.

Exactly... I'll be one of those fools too... and I'll be posting a big review I'm sure.

As to the whole "quality control" seems like an argument over people's definitions more than the toys. There's no argument they have problems. Are they design problems? Are they problems when the toy was being built? Are they problems with the choices of materials? What do we call the different problems? Manufacture problems? Quality problems? Design problems? The Alpha has problems everywhere. The design of the locking mechanisms is imperfect because it doesn't allow any room for the inevitable manufacture problems, the manufacture problems may be related to the choice of materials, etc. Basically, trying to pinpoint the problem and put a label on it is an effort in futility.

That all said, when you do win the lottery and get a really cool Alpha it does pay off. I've bought a ton of Alphas and the few I have the seem to have been built just right are beautiful display pieces. Sure, they could be better in lots of ways still but had they all worked out as well as the best examples out there then I imagine the fan reaction would have been MUCH better. There are lots of ways for Toynami to screw up the Cyclone but if they don't it could be really wonderful. I have my own theories but I'm trying to stay really open-minded here.

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Hate to rain folk's parade here but I've owned just about everything Toynami has put out at some point in time... superposables both alpha and valkyrie, posable valkyries, MPC VF-1's, Imen and my dreaded MPC Alpha. Out of all of them, the only thing I would rate as a "quality" product was the Imen... they alone had the trifecta of decent materials, decent paint and decent fit and finish. Everything else was commonly sub par with smudged / misaligned paint, floppy limbs in the MPC's, horrid fit between parts, transformations that left gaps and clunky "sorta transformed" states, in the case of the posables and superposables the gummy material they where made out of made posing them difficult and in three cases of mine valkyrie arms and heads just plain twisted off because they became "stuck" between each other and alpha's arms or legs would rotate out of joint and would never go back in or the ball would twist off in the socket. I had to send parts of my Alpha back to be replaced, like many people had to. And before anyone says it, I am NOT "rough with my toys". Most of the things that broke on my Toynami things happened under the gentlest of movement or transformation. All my toys where shelf queens... they broke or fell apart under the most minor of movements and handling. It got to the point before I sold them all off as parts that I didn't even want to touch them out of the fear of something else breaking, falling off or getting more loose.

I would not call all these things "mistakes" nor would I call them unique to Toynami... what I DO call them is shoddy, especially for the high price tags these things commanded right out of the gate that I paid. I see a lot of folks throwing around terms like "you just got a bad one" but nearly every Toynami thing I've owned (outside of the Imen) has had many of what I consider basic things wrong with them. My frustration, anger and dislike of Toynami is based on all this... I have yet to own something made by Toynami other than an Imen that was not screwed up in some way.

And for the record it is not just Toynami... this "low quality high price" thing is sweeping the adult collectible market. I've all but stopped buying toys in general because it seems everyone is rushing shoddy, poor fit / finish overpriced stuff to market lately.

Also for the record I never try to openly complain about the quality of toys... Toynami is just a very, very sore subject with me. In the end it is all opinion and personal experience... just as I have no doubt people have had glowing experiences with Toynami toys you cannot assume that we all have or that those of us who are complaining are doing so in "baseless" fashions. There are a lot of folks just like me who have "had it" with companies like Toynami.

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I own all four Alphas and was lucky enough to get good ones (except for the arched back and the problems every Alpha has), and yet I think that Toynami has a lot to prove to us customers. It pisses me off that after all the problems found in the first release of the Alpha (the Bernard), they didn't move a finger to improve the subsequent releases. They just didn't care.

The sad thing is that the future doesn't look too bright either. I understand Graham´s complain about us being unfair with a toy that nobody has even handled yet, but look at them: that Cyclone sculpt alone is poor and so the Beta's (I was comparing the pictures with the lineart last night). In my opinion, scupt is a part of QC: If you have a mediocre sculpt, you have a mediocre toy.

And don't make me start with Yamato :lol:

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How is the lack of fit and finish not a quality issue?

I had hoped the uppercase 'CONTROL' would be noticed, but evidently not. :) 'Quality control', as I understand it (and I'm no businessman), is a measure of how accurately each unit that is manufactured meets the specs of the design. Thus, 'quality control' measures how successful a company is at weeding out manufacturing errors and random 'noise' in the production process.

By contrast, a toy can also have 'quality' problems (as the alphas do) if the design itself is flawed. In that case, it's not a matter of the factory failing to meet the design specs, it's a matter of the design sucking.

IMO, the alphas fit better in the latter category, since I bought quite a few of them and NONE of them really transform well. This leads me to believe it's not some random production errors at fault, but the original design of the toy.

Of course, as others have said, this is not a very crucial point. B))

Edited by Shaggydog
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There are a lot of folks just like me who have "had it" with companies like Toynami.

Amen. Personally, I've "had it" with Toynami ever since the Vol. 1 MPC that was supposed to be 2/3 die-cast metal. Of course, Toynami didn't tell anyone it wasn't 2/3 die-cast until one week before the toy came out. And then the toy itself was not only 99.5% plastic, but really poorly made plastic at that.

Fool me once... uh, we won't get fooled again!

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I had hoped the uppercase 'CONTROL' would be noticed, but evidently not. :) 'Quality control', as I understand it (and I'm no businessman), is a measure of how accurately each unit that is manufactured meets the specs of the design. Thus, 'quality control' measures how successful a company is at weeding out manufacturing errors and random 'noise' in the production process.

By contrast, a toy can also have 'quality' problems (as the alphas do) if the design itself is flawed. In that case, it's not a matter of the factory failing to meet the design specs, it's a matter of the design sucking.

IMO, the alphas fit better in the latter category, since I bought quite a few of them and NONE of them really transform well. This leads me to believe it's not some random production errors at fault, but the original design of the toy.

Of course, as others have said, this is not a very crucial point. B))

so since the malfunction of the toy is on the designer's side then it should be no cause of complaint? What's your point? As I see it, the issue here is the over all quality of the product as bought and expected by the consumers. It's funny that semantics is used as a defense and people are willing to lay down for that. :rolleyes:

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so since the malfunction of the toy is on the designer's side then it should be no cause of complaint?

Um.. when did I say that?

Are you reading what I'm writing?

My point is that the alphas were a disappointment, but the rest of Toynami's products have been relatively good, so people shouldn't give up on Toynami just yet.

Is that difficult to understand? :p

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It's funny that semantics is used as a defense and people are willing to lay down for that.

You're arguing semantics and people are defending semantics. It doesn't seem like any one is debating whether or not the Alpha is or isn't quality. Sounds universal that everyone was let down by it.

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Exo, I could say the exact same thing about Yamato. "Negativity towards Yamato for me is well justified as I've bought the products that I talk about. " Let's see, oh, the original YF-19, the VF-11, Escaflowne, the VF-0A, the Garland... blah blah blah.

For the record, I have had two Toynami VF-1's (Hikaru 1J and Roy 1S) and with the exception of a slight paint smudge on the leg on the Roy, they were both fine. I was really happy with my 1J and kept it. No complaints there. I have like 6 SD VF-1's (no problems), I bought two of the convention exclusive Superposeable Hikaru Strike and one had a slight problem with its knee and the Strike cannon would not go down, my roommate bought the green Alpha and it is kind of a mess (broken hand, broken sensor pod panel), and doesn't fit that well together to begin with, then I got a 1/100 convention exclusive Hikaru VF-1S and it is just fine. So really, I don't see their track record as much different than Yamato's... Yamato just costs more for the most part. $15 for a Superposeable that isn't perfect is not a big deal, $100 for a Garland with an arm that breaks off despite handling it incredibly delicately blows. Granted, the Alpha was $80 new, but that's still less, so whatever. They're still both expensive, and Yamato and Toynami both have quality problems.

Edited by Ginrai
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Toynami low end stuff is good, the Morphers, Posables and 1/100 scale. The Masterpieces is were they fell short. If they were priced much cheeper then I would have less issues with them The VF-1's were bad. The Alpha's were better. I have hope for the Cyclones and the Beta.

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Quite frankly, I am in agreement with Graham. There has been plenty of negativity on the toys in general. I am getting depressed from reading the complaining and nitpicking as well. Sure you cannot please everyone but man, where is the cheese because there is so much whining... especially on yamato.

As for Toynami, their track record speaks for themselves. I mean how can you not get disappointed with them. Sure I liked their voltron but looking back at their stuff on robotech, I am the wait and see crowd. I have to agree with most that the blew it on the beta.

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I'm trying to figure out how some people who have posted here, automatically assume that it's HGs fault for all the toy problems and how they are just copying. This is a new sculpt for the "Cyclone" ride armor. How different will the transformation be, I have no clue, but there are only so many ways they can have it transform and I'm sure they are trying to do it the right way.

I know that people are gonna compare it to the Gakken version, and say that it is a copy. It's an easy assumption to make, especially since most of us wanna hate Toynami so you can join a bandwagon and feel more important in life. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of theirs either, but I do believe in "testing" out all new products. For example, just because the VF-1s sucked from Toynami, doesn't mean their Inuyasha toys, or their Voltron toy sucked. Those happened to be very impressive toys. The saying applies here, "the proof is in the pudding", meaning, let's measure it up when they come out. The alphas have been a let down, especially since there have been no official release of the BETA, but that set aside, if you want the Cyclone, then wait for it, wait for reviews, and weigh it in at that time.

I do hope they decide to do the "Rook Bartley" version instead of the Sue Graham. They need to use the characters that everyone remembers. Hopefully interchangeable heads so you can put on the heads without helmets. :D

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haha, this thread is going nowhere. :lol:

to me theres only 2 catagories in which toys fall under, cool and crap, theres no inbetween.

either something is cool and you enjoy it for what it is, or its crap in which case its sold to the next person who willing to buy it.

so far toynamis robotech products have been craptacular for the most part. don't get me wrong, i still own the alphas but thats only in hopes that they release the beta. no beta, then these alphas are history.

as far as quality control vs. design flaws vs. i gotta find someone/thing to blame, to me its all the same thing.

what does it really matter who, where, what, is at fault?

in the end it makes absolutely no difference as the end product ends up being a POS in some way shape or form. pointing fingers and trying to place the blame is just so american. whats done is done, accept it and move along. its freakin toy for petes sake.

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Um.. when did I say that?

Are you reading what I'm writing?

My point is that the alphas were a disappointment, but the rest of Toynami's products have been relatively good, so people shouldn't give up on Toynami just yet.

Is that difficult to understand? :p

I'm reading what you write and I'm just clueless to your point of defining what "QC" is... so what if people are misusing the actual definition? We all know that we're all just talking about the general quality of the toy. Same with Yamato... BTW: Ginrai, I agree about the quality of Yamato's other stuff. I never got the ones you talked about because they seem like utter crap, but the ones I did get aside from the 1/48s were cursed with problems (Appleseed and GITS figures).

And yes it is difficult to understand... "don't give up just yet?" So we should continue to be disappointed and let the fact that they can't get crap right just of yet be enough of a reason to keep buying crap? You're correct, sir... I'm clueless to your meaning... I hope to never understand that way of thinking.

Like Js said, a lot of our complaints is based on actual purchase and handling... but people keep passing it off as anti HG BS... I'd buy a ton of HG/Toynami stuff if they got it right because I love the property that they hold license to... but it seems that they cater more to people that love to collect subpar products. Good luck with that.

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No official word on the Beta, but the fact they've started showing the proto again is likely because they have another Alpha to sell which lends more strength to the claims that Toynami's linked their intention to release a MPC Beta based on strong MPC Alpha sales.

'course that leads to the a Catch 22, Toynami won't release the MPC Beta unless more people buy MPC Alphas, where a lot of people have held off buying a MPC Alpha until Toynami produce a MPC Beta...

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I could not care less about "toynami vs. yamato" arguments, and I've already mentioned my lack of enthusiasm for the cyclones.

But this always drives me crazy:

The saying applies here, "the proof is in the pudding", meaning, let's measure it up when they come

out

That is NOT the saying. "the proof is in the pudding" might be far more widely used today than it should, but anyone can see it makes no sense. The saying that applies here is, "the proof of the pudding is in the tasting." I do not know how the original phrase was perverted, but there you have it.

edit- Erased a seperate comment dealing with shaggy's semantics being clear. I actually don't care that people are talking past each other. More nonsense for us to scroll past, but I don't care enough to involve myself.

Edited by Phyrox
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Toynami low end stuff is good, the Morphers, Posables and 1/100 scale. The Masterpieces is were they fell short. If they were priced much cheeper then I would have less issues with them The VF-1's were bad. The Alpha's were better. I have hope for the Cyclones and the Beta.

Improvements made to the alphas would be good. Just make it all plastic so I can pose it, make it cheaper than the limited editions and I would buy it.

Didn't they gradually improve the vf-1 mpc by the time they got to ben? I want them to gradually improve on the alphas until its safe to buy.

Transformer alternators have complex transformations, good tight joints without fear of stressing them, beefy man hands, authentic sculpt that passes as a model kit, and great posability. Weapons can be held firmly, and the price isn't too bad even if you are not a fan of transformers who wants to collect everything, and just casual buyer of toys. *Sigh* although it might seem like we are whining, it's just hard for us to go back once you've had something so good. Like how I can't get used to playing my games in Standard defination in non-prgressive scan when I have been playing them in HD. Normally people expect things to get better over time. I still hold out optimistic hope that they do (Toynami's 1/100 vf-1 second releases for eg) but without some type of place to whine about these problems, we can't let them know what keeps us up at night.

"The squeaky wheel gets the oil" as they say.

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
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Toynami won't release the MPC Beta unless more people buy MPC Alphas, where a lot of people have held off buying a MPC Alpha until Toynami produce a MPC Beta...

They need to just go ahead and release the Beta. The Alphas are not good on thier own merrit. I bought the VF-1 MPCs because they promised Super Veritech Armor and delivered. I have all 4 Alphas and still no Beta. I have the 1/100 VF-1s with the promise of fastpacks. They better deliver or all of it is getting sold. I am getting feed up with thier lack of faith in the Robotech fans. Release a good product at a good price and we will buy. Release crap at a high price and it going to sit in a warehouse. I just sent off another email this month because I needed replacements parts for subpar parts. This is not directed at you. I just hope you can relay the message since you are in good with HG. I just see too many flaws in the business model for Robotech. Either Toynami changes or give the contract to someone else. I want to spend the money but it might just have to swing more of it Yamato way if Toynami keeps breaking promises.

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I could not care less about "toynami vs. yamato" arguments, and I've already mentioned my lack of enthusiasm for the cyclones.

But this always drives me crazy:

That is NOT the saying. "the proof is in the pudding" might be far more widely used today than it should, but anyone can see it makes no sense. The saying that applies here is, "the proof of the pudding is in the tasting." I do not know how the original phrase was perverted, but there you have it.

edit- Erased a seperate comment dealing with shaggy's semantics being clear. I actually don't care that people are talking past each other. More nonsense for us to scroll past, but I don't care enough to involve myself.

i think "the proof is in the pudding" means that pudding isnt pudding until the end. meaning that u should wait til the end to see what the finale is...

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to me theres only 2 catagories in which toys fall under, cool and crap, theres no inbetween.

either something is cool and you enjoy it for what it is, or its crap in which case its sold to the next person who willing to buy it.

Err, I don't know man. The Alphas are cool crap. :D

The Alpha isn't really that bad in terms of design.. you do need to know how to maximize its transformation (to get a decent fighter mode), but overall it was ok. Some parts of the sculpt are not good (the 6J head, for example) but overall it's ok. It sort of helps/ makes things moot that they are the only company that is producing this line.

But the material chosen, man it just feels so fragile... Since this is a mechanical toy, material and design must go hand in hand. Overall, it felt like the Alpha was designed for a significantly better plastic (like POM or simply a better grade of plastic), but was given lesser material to work with. Smacks of cost-cutting, but that's paranoia..

And like others said, improvements don't seem to be a major priority for Toynami, they don't seem to want to hear what fans and customers are saying.

On semantics, as an end consumer, I don't really care for what kinds of quality controls Toynami might or might not have. I do care about the overall quality of the toy itself, and in the case of the Alpha, it came down over more on DND's "crap" side of the equation. Like I said, it's cool crap, but still a bit crappy.

On a more personal note, I really dislike seeing Toynami and Yamato compared side by side. I'm not that much of a Yamato fanatic, but you got to admit, Yamato does do toys better than Toynami -- better design, engineering, material usage, and openess to feedback. They do have their issues -- QC being one of them -- but IMO, they do deliver more perceived quality for money than Toynami. Yes, I do realise this could be the fanboy talking, but really, Toynami and Yamato has dramatically different attitudes towards quality of product.

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i think "the proof is in the pudding" means that pudding isnt pudding until the end. meaning that u should wait til the end to see what the finale is...

Nope.

The proof of the pudding is in the tasting/eating is an old expression.

It means you don't really know the quality of something until you actually try it.

I know what people think they are saying when they shorten it, that just isn't what it means...well that, and the short version makes no sense on its own.

But back to the toynami vs. yamato bickering, by all means.

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Heh. OK. The definition of 'quality control' is obviously not important, nor (evidently) is it widely agreed-upon in these parts. In my original post I just tossed in a tiny aside about quality control vs. design issues, it was a minor point and not really relevant to my main point. I apologize that it turned into some internet-standard retarded argument mess. :D

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On a more personal note, I really dislike seeing Toynami and Yamato compared side by side. I'm not that much of a Yamato fanatic, but you got to admit, Yamato does do toys better than Toynami -- better design, engineering, material usage, and openess to feedback.

Better material usage? How long can people keep saying that? How many crumbling shoulders and snapped connectors and stress-marked clips does Yamato have to make before the madness comes to an end? :)

There are two ways to measure 'material quality'. The first way is the subjective measure of 'how a material feels'. The second way includes hard evidence, like arms falling off. One of those two measures is more important than the other. Do you want civil engineers to start building bridges with stuff that 'feels high quality' to them?

Edited by Shaggydog
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But back to the toynami vs. yamato bickering, by all means.

That is one thing that makes no sense to me. Why is it Yamato or other toy companies always are brought in as some kind of metering stick when folks are complaining about Toynami? It's like people talking about new Ford vehicles and someone says how they had problems with Ford vehicles in the past and they no longer wish to purchase Ford products because of their past problems they had and then all of a sudden someone just blurts out "Well, Chevy makes pieces of crap too!". Uh... ok... yeah, they do... what does that have to do with this POS Ford Truck I have in the garage? It's kind of a strange way to steer a topic, don't you think?

And with that, I'll take my leave of this thread. People know me and my thoughts on this matter. Further remarks are only going to get more feathers ruffled on both sides of a simple difference of opinion.

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I was just looking at the pictures of the Cyclons again, and it's a damn shame: The only company making these and there's no proud in the making of the product. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about, I'm an artist and when you're not fully focused on what you're doing it shows: The bike is too small and ugly, reminds me a lot of those tiny Cyclones with the black linking bar to the rider.

At least on the Alphas you could see the good intentions of the early stages.

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