Autobot Pipes (Deluxe Class, 2021)
Hasbro ID number: WFC-K32
TakaraTomy ID number: KD EX-15
TakaraTomy release date: June 25, 2022

Accessories: 2 pipe blasters

Part of the final wave of War for Cybertron: Kingdom Deluxe Class toys, ”Autobot Pipes” is a retool of the Huffer from the same line, using new shoulders, forearms, hands, wheels, chest, crotch, and head (which deviates slightly from the cartoon, as the mouthplate is taller and covers the nose more), and an additional transformation step to turn the cab upside down in robot mode. He transforms into a cab-over truck in 16 steps, and the pipe blasters can store on the back or as smokestacks. His robot mode is covered in 5 mm ports as part of the C.O.M.B.A.T. System/F.O.S.S.I.L. Technology. He also has a torso transformation joint that functions as an ab-crunch.
As an extra feature, Pipes can tow Earthrise Optimus Prime’s trailer (or any of its redecoes), a carryover from Huffer.

Unfortunately, due to a fan-coloring of Pipes’s unfinalized model using colors eye dropped from cartoon screen captures being shared around on the internet, Pipes features a gray rear-window on his cab, which doesn’t actually appear on his finalized model (see ”Notes” below). This model originated from the Ukrainian fansite Transformers.kiev.ua, and appears often in top Google Image search results due to it being shared around on Pinterest and it being used as the main image of his Transformers wikia page.

Pipes’s instructions depict his cab-backpack in robot mode being angled at 45-degrees on his back. While this does compress his backpack into a manageable size, it also leaves the backpack inaccurate to his design. The cab-backpack CAN be set to the cartoon-accurate design, but this leaves it jutting out very far from his body. The cab-backpack is also prone to easily popping off its mushroom swivel-peg while trying to move it around during transformation.

Pipes was officially revealed via preorder listing pages at BigBadToyStore and Entertainment Earth in late September 2021, with no public announcement from Hasbro. Though Pipes’s wave was scheduled for a first quarter 2022 release, they in fact arrived on U.S. store shelves in December 2021.

In Japan, Pipes was released as a TakaraTomy Mall exclusive.

Pipes was retooled into Autobot Puffer for the Amazon/Hasbro Pulse exclusive ”Golden Disk Collection”.

Notes:

Pipes’s profile picture in Dreamwave’s More than Meets the Eye series is very... interesting. Apparently he was originally drawn (likely by Pat Lee) with no hands, as per the toy, then hands (drawn by Don Figueroa) were edited onto the picture at a later point. Pipes’s right hand comes from Bristleback’s profile picture, while the left comes from Wildfly’s.

Pipes received a movieverse homage in the form of Revenge of the Fallen Blowpipe.

The Five Faces of Pipes:
Pipes has a total of three known character models:
The first is what appears to be based on his Generation 1 toy, with no face and no hands.

The second is his pre-final model, which is closer to his final model, only it’s got some very small, barely noticeable differences, the biggest being the pose he’s drawn in. This model has red eyes based on the toy’s red visor and a gray rear-window behind his head. This model appears in his profile published in Marvel Comics’ The Transformers Universe (the image used at the top of this very article) and was also published in The Ark series books.

The third is his final model, which has much boxer shapes to his design. This model omits the differently-colored rear-window and replaces the pre-final model’s red eyes with blue eyes. Due to all of the episodes Pipes appears in being animated by AKOM, the majority of his appearances give him the red eyes of the pre-final model, despite them using the final, meaning that no 100% accurate version of Pipes is ever shown on-screen.

Pipes shifts between about five different physical appearances in ”Five Faces of Darkness, Part 5”. Of these five appearances, his early toy-accurate model, and his final model appear to be at play. His coloration on the other hand, is solely based on his pre-final model’s, with hints of the final model’s color differences slipping their way in on occasion. The five different appearances are as follows:

-The early model based directly on the toy.
-The aforementioned model, but with the addition of hands.
-The final model, with the pre-final model’s colors (gray rear-window behind his head and red eyes).
-The final model, with the correct blue eyes, but incorrect gray rear-window (the colors that Hasbro happened to use for his Kingdom toy).
-The final model, with the correct uncoloured rear-window, but the incorrect red eyes (this is also the way he is depicted in ”Forever Is a Long Time Coming”).

Transformers G1

Hasbro / Takara Tomy

5010993782246

2021

United States

2022-06-25

Kingdom

~£14.10

2025-04-05

2022-05-14 14:56:09