Found an old Diaclone Catalog that came with the Lancia Stratos toy I bought. The Lancia Stratos was "Wheel Jack" in the American Transformers equivalent. Picture above was that of the front page. Click the images to enlarge.
This is the back page. It features change attack robots and their sky base, then on the top right is the jet robot, lower right :insect robots and lower-left: a robot fort.
A little backgrounder of the story of the Diaclone.
This is the "Car Robot" line of Diaclone. The original Diaclone toys usually had a figure included with them that had magnets on their soles and could be fitted inside the vehicle. Diaclone toy line by Takara was licensed by Hasbro in order to form the core of the Transformers animation series in the united states. In this picture is the iconic Battle Convoy that became Optimus Prime the leader of the autobots.
Featured in this page is the "attack robot" that had two variants. One could transform to drill tank type, while the other was jet type. It also had the special ability to transform while in motion to a standing position. On the right side is the information on the "merging robot" series which became the evil Constructicons in the Transformer series.
Here's another page on the "merging robot" series where it also feature as train robot. I often wonder why Hasbro never incorporated the train robot in the Transformers series. Probably because the United States was never really used trains for mass transportation in cities so it would be hard for the kids to relate to this, but that's just me thinking.
Then here's the Dinosaur Robot series that became the Dinobots in the Transformers cartoon. I actually loved the Dinobots, probably because I loved learning about dinosaurs when I was growing up.
Lastly there's the double changer series, that comprised of a Celica XX, Ferari BB and a Savannah RX-7 that could transform to cars in flying mode. I never saw this in the cartoon series. But I think I remember seeing them being a promo toy that one could redeem from points. I think, I'm not sure about this though.
Lastly, here's some old Diaclone commercials I found at Youtube.
