20th Century Toy Collector

Yo Joe!

Postcards from Autobot City

I love it when I accidentally stumble upon something cool. Isn’t that just the best way to discover cool shit? Case in point: a little while ago I was reorganizing my collection room and had a stack of Majokit boxes standing next to some of my Transformers. For those who don’t know what Majokit was (and that’s probably most of you): the Majokit toy line was a modular city that you could build using various parts. You had pavements, traffic lights and signs, street lights, gas stations, the works. It was created somewhere around 1983 by French die-cast metal model car manufacturer Majorette.

MB Red Tracks and MB Jazz in Autobot City

“Welcome to Metroplex”

When I saw my Transformers stacked next to my Majokit I thought to myself; “wouldn’t it be cool to combine Majokit and Transformers and create a little diorama?” After all, Majokit and the early Transformers Autobot cars were more or less the same scale. So I grabbed a couple of my MB Transformers Autobot cars (Jazz, Red Tracks and Ratchet) and one of my favourite big G1’s : Metroplex and went to town!

Ratchet and Red Tracks

Within 5 minutes I had laid out a very basic Majokit street. I added some street lights, some signs and traffic lights and a house. Then I placed Ratchet and Jazz in there. That looked pretty cool. I imagined what Autobot City might have looked like and that’s when I decided I would drop big daddy Metroplex in there in city mode. To spice things up I also added the MB Red Tracks to the scene. I positioned Red Tracks as if he were driving down Metroplex’s ramp.

Metroplex, with laserbeams of awesomeness shooting up behind him

Some seriously geeky fun ensued and I quickly grabbed my iPhone and made some snapshots of the scene, before I had to pack everything up again. I then imported the photos into Photoshop and let the creative juices flow by adding a cool atmospheric background to the scene.

MB Jazz braking for a red light

As these photos were made in a hurry with a smartphone camera under low light conditions they’re not exactly the best quality, but the end result came out looking pretty OK for a proof of concept. At the very least it made me decide to redo this little project in the near future using my DSLR and on a larger scale (a bigger Majokit street plan, more Autobots). There’s so much cool and nerdy stuff I can think of for the next attempt.

The two photos that I made can be seen in their entirety below:

“Mega Majokit”

Before I sign off here’s a very cool photo showing what levels of mega coolness were attainable if you had enough dough to buy shitloads of Majokit sets back in 1983-1984. Man I just loved that kind of thing. Just imagine the scene below filled with early G1 Autobots. :-)

posted on March 24, 2013 by 20th Century Toy Collector in Majokit,Transformers and has Comments (5)

5 Responses to “Postcards from Autobot City”

  1. Nicky says:

    I remember Majokit! I had one of those houses and a gas station with some street parts. The combination with Transformers is very cool! I hope you’ll make more pics in the future.

    I can’t remember much more about Majokit. There were some catalogs included and I don’t think the sets were that expensive. It wasn’t something that was available for years I think.

  2. Sjoerd says:

    This completely passed me by back in the day. Must say fits quite well with Transformers and that last picture from the folder looks amazing.

  3. Fighbird says:

    Hey, I remember those! I actually thought they weren’t that obscure, but it makes sense if they were only available in selected parts of Europe.

    Aw man, I remember setups like in that last pic from catalogs myself – and I remember those pesky (but fun!) printed-on-clear-plastic street crossings that used to curl up and made placing them a nightmare! And the turn-dial street lights with the curddy sticker inside that actually worked perfectly when used! LOL! Good times… :)

    Cool stuff as always, Mijo, and awesome idea of combining these two properties like this. :)

    • 20th Century Toy Collector says:

      Thx, dudes! I am very happy to see that Majokit was so loved and still remembered by fellow TF collectors. :-)

  4. Chris says:

    Not only do I remember what Majo-kit is, but I’m looking at a box of it right now. I had it when I was a kid, and since I never got rid of anything, it was still in my old bedroom at my parents house. They decided to bring it with them last time they came to see their grandkids, so now my 5, 8 and 11 year old have been introduced to the coolness of 1980s toys.

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