20th Anniversary Key Moments - 1985 Snow Cat

In early 2003, I decided to look at the first vehicle on the site.  At the time, I was running low on figures to talk about.  And, as I had managed to get a few pictures out in the snow, I thought something like the Snow Cat made for a great way to show off some of the weather inspired photos I had managed to get. The Snow Cat was also a favorite vehicle from my childhood that survived relatively unscathed.  So, I did a little write up on it and vehicles were now part of the items I reviewed on the site.

But, the notion of vehicles was short-lived.  In the early years, I only looked a few.  And, in pretty much every case, I was not satisfied with the work I had done and felt the profiles were lacking.  As all my collection was boxed up in late 2003 and didn't get opened until 2005, vehicles fell the wayside and there were very few of them for a long time.

As a kid, vehicles were fun.  But, while Hasbro and many kids felt that vehicles were the driver of the line, I felt that they were a nice supplement to the figures.  While I'd play with vehicles inside, it was rare to take more than one outside.  And, even when I did, it was the figures who got the use and the vehicle became more of a piece of the landscape than a driver of the action.  I recall taking a box of vehicles to my grandparents' house and not playing with any of them since it was more fun to hide figures in their various gardens.  So, while vehicles were important, they were also secondary to the characters and actions of the figures.

In recent years, though, I've grown to appreciate vehicles more.  For a very long time, they were dirt cheap.  In many cases, you'd pay more for shipping a vehicle than you would for the toy itself.  (There were exceptions, of course.)  So, that made some of the vehicles I'd long neglected more attractive.  And, as I've added them, I've had more occasion to write about them on the site.  In the past few years, I've profiled more vehicles than ever before.  And, I've been more satisfied with the results, too.

Now, though, my vehicles are boxed up, again.  And, once again, I have no real indication of how long they will simply be cardboard prisoners in my garage.  I have a few that I want to review.  And, at some point in the next two years I'll get to the long awaited BUGG profile.  But, for now, I'll try to find some time to look at whatever's at the top of a box that I can get out for a quick photo shoot.  The Joe line is so diverse in vehicle offerings in terms of purpose and size that they are a line unto themselves.