Daily Prime - Diaclone Bloated Pre-Rub G1 Optimus Prime

The Daily Prime goes back in time to look at the original 1984 Generation 1 Optimus Prime that time forgot. Some of you may have heard the terms "Bloated", "Pre-Rub" and or "Metal Plates" used for the G1 Optimus Prime before. This is actually a real thing that for reasons unknown was rather different from the most common mainline G1 Optimus Prime that most kids got. Speculation has it that some Diaclone No. 17 Battle Convoy toys were repacked as the G1 figures due to these features being part of the original Takara Diaclone models.

The differences are numerous with the most evident being the lack of a rub symbol, silver roller, and silver missiles. However, there are more differences than meets the Prime including the metal plates on the inside of the trailer carried over from Diaclone to hold Drivers with magnetic feet, filled parts of the trailer, silver launcher, different model Ion Blaster, bloated fists, bloated gas pumps, and even some of the markings on the side of the cab that were repositioned on the later common G1 production version.

These differences were known to Hasbro, as even the original paperwork depicted many of the original Diaclone parts but was updated when the common G1 Optimus Prime variants were produced. Shown here is Diaclone Bloated Pre-Rub Optimus Prime (left) with the common Optimus Prime (right) as well as a scan of the original parts paperwork in the second image that even shows the cutouts for the metal plate tabs s on outside of the trailer.