1982 RAM

The RAM was my first G.I. Joe toy.  My younger brother had gotten most of the entire series for his birthday in October of 1982.  I desperately wanted some figures of my own.  I had to wait for two months before my birthday would come along and give me the chance.  However, I was to be mostly disappointed that day.  Instead of a full collection of Joe toys, I got just one: the RAM.  It was nice as we didn't actually have the RAM among my brother's birthday bonanza.  But, I also owned no figures to ride it.  Not really sure what to do with a motorcycle without a rider, I left the conundrum for another day.  That proved fortuitous, though.  The next day, after school, one friend who had been sick for my party the day before dropped by to give me my present.  It was a carded Breaker figure.  Now, I not only had a rider for my cycle, but I had THE rider for my cycle who appeared on the box artwork.  From that day one, I have been rather unable to separate Breaker and the RAM as a classic combo.

My childhood RAM suffered greatly.  This was due to the fact that it was well loved.  I played with it all the time.  This lead to it getting beat up.  The footpegs were the first to go.  Then, the kickstand was broken in half.  These were acceptable losses, though.  But, eventually, a catastrophic breakage occurred.  The sidecar pegs got broken off and the gatling cannon could no longer attach to the motorcycle.  With this loss, the RAM became less useful.  So, I tried to glue the pieces together.  I used rubber cement, though, and it melted the plastic together.  But, it wasn't strong enough and quickly broke again: now in an unrepairable fashion.

Sans weapon, the RAM kind of fell into disfavor.  When the Silver Mirage debuted in 1985, I brought out the ramshackle RAM as an accoutrement to the new cycle.  But, as the Silver Mirage proved to be a horrible piece of crap, the RAM was no longer needed.  It stuck around, though.  Mostly, the carcass lied in a pile of broken an unloved toys that made up our "debris field" where we'd have adventures.  We'd clean that mess up into a shallow box.  And, then, I'd dump it out on the floor the next time I wanted the debris to be available or I was looking for some obscure part that I thought might be in there.  (That box survived in my parents attic until the late 1990s when I finally pulled all the pieces out and added them to my personal collection.)  Sometimes, a lone assassin would ride it into a Joe base to shoot the place up.  Maybe, he'd have a bomb planted on it.  Usually, though, this rogue would get shot up well before he did real damage.  But, the RAM had moved from a key component of my main group of toys to an afterthought junk toy due to the breakage it had suffered.  I didn't really think much about that, though.  I had plenty of new Joe toys to take the RAM's place.  

Christmas of 1986, though, brought the RAM back to prominence.  Not due to its return to glory.  But, instead, due to a new, unexpected repaint that came to my collection: the Dreadnok Ground Assault RAM.  This new toy renewed the RAM and proved that its design had held up and was on par with later toy designs.  As the Dreadnok RAM was green, I adopted it for the Joes and it was never a Cobra vehicle.  This RAM remained a beloved part of my childhood play pattern until the end of 1987: when I packed all my toys away.  But, it made me realize that the RAM was something that was always going to be integral to my enjoyment of the Joe line.

Even today, in the display case next to my desk, Breaker rides the RAM.  It's just one of those images of childhood that I keep around.  As I've gotten older, I've grown to appreciate Joe toys are pneumonic devices moreso than playthings.  Mostly, that's due to the toys growing old and brittle.  But, just seeing Breaker on the RAM makes me 8 years old, again.  And, it is nice to have something around which can spark those feelings: especially when things are just a bit...too adult when bills are due, the school's calling and your boss decides he wants your role to change.  The RAM fills that need.

You'll see some criticism of the RAM for the lack of handle bars.  Hasbro, though, really promoted this when they added handles to the updated versions of the RAM in the 2000's.  As a kid, I liked the weird hand holds on the sides of the cycle and inside the front hood.  Sure, they made little sense.  But, considering the cycle was designed for straight arm figures, they worked well enough.  And, it allows for solid posing on the toy, too.  I'd often have the rider be able to hold onto the controls while shooting behind them at a follower.  

After Christmas in 1982, I had three Joe vehicles and 4 Joe figures.  They were the RAM, VAMP and MMS along with Clutch, Hawk, Snake Eyes and Breaker.  This meant that I didn't really have space on three vehicles for all four figures.  I could put Snake Eyes on the RAM, behind Breaker.  But, I Breaker had to wear his pack.  So, that meant that Snake Eyes couldn't sit behind him.  I could have had Snake Eyes drive.  But, I didn't like that.  So, instead, I'd try to sit Snake Eyes on the back of the VAMP with his legs straddling the gun.  Since that didn't really work, Snake Eyes was the odd man out.  This exclusion helped reinforce the notion of Snake Eyes being a bad guy.  It also helped that we had three of them.  So, this little army of Snake Eyes figures were my bad guys in the era before Cobras were really available.  

The RAM got releases all around the world.  Palitoy, Funskool and Estrela all released versions.  (There's probably more.  But, I've pretty much given up trying to document all the worldly vehicle releases since the information is so scattered and mostly absent.)  Hasbro released it twice.  And, during the Anniversary era, Hasbro remade the cycle with updated handle bars and more details.  There's also a model kit that is sometimes mistaken for a RAM variant.  I believe it's slightly smaller than the actual RAM.  But, you'll still see those out there from time to time.

RAMs are cheap.  Even though it has lots of small and brittle parts, mint and complete versions remain easy to find.  You can get really high quality samples in the $25 range.  But, just a little wear will cut that price in half.  Dealers still think it's 2021 and price RAMs at exorbitantly high prices.  But, unlike some other lofty dealer expectations, these high priced RAMs don't move.  So, you can acquire a nice RAM for less than pretty much any figure from its release era.  Joe vehicles ebb and flow, though.  There are times when you can't give them away and other times when they out pace figures in terms of pricing.  But, it's nice that early items like this RAM are still attainable.