Monday, January 22, 2001
Cycle Drone Test Shot Pic
Dante the Decepticon has found an image of the new Cycle Drone toy from the Battle For The Spark line of BM toys. It's going to be a basic, and it looks extremely show accurate. Hopefully they'll leave it in these test colors so we can all play with a modern day Cy-Kill.

Friday, January 19, 2001
Shockwave expresses doubt over Car Robots
The Following is all speculative, and not concrete information
Though not the well of information he once was, Shockwave still has some inside contacts, and has already hinted toward seeing new 3d models for a series. He has gone out of his way to say that it may not be Mainframe that produces it.
He also seemed to lean towards a suggestion that the CR toys may come but not the CR series. Perhaps Hasbro will design a new show around some of the CR charactes and fill out the cast with some new molds to avoid re-using molds as Takara did.
Toyfair will be our first real sign...

Friday, January 19, 2001
New Dinobots Rapticon and Terranotron on BWTF.com
These are the redecorated TM2 Dinobot and TM Terrorsaur respectively. nice clear shots of each mode. Thanks to RodimusToe for this info.

• Rapticon (Beast Mode)
• Rapticon (Robot Mode)
• Terranotron (Beast Mode)
• Terranotron (Robot Mode)

Wednesday, January 17, 2001
BM Is Off FOX's Lineup
Come January 29th, Beast Machines will no longer be a part of FOX's lineup. This could be bad for toy sales, seeing as how there's still all those Battle For The Spark BM toys still to be hitting the shelves, and having a show really helps out in that area. This news (good or bad, you make the call) comes to us thanks to Earth Prime of the AllSpark.

Wednesday, January 17, 2001
Car Robots in the USA
Though not officially announced, all reports indicate that the Japanese Car Robots series will be coming to the US in 2001 for the fall season. The Matrix breaks this story, and also indicates the the voice cast from the recent Mainframe shows will be brought on to dub the show.
No confirmation on whether the show will take place within the current Transformers universe, or if any of the Car Robots characters will be westernized as past Beast Wars or Beast Machines characters (i.e. cheetor, rattrap, etc become car brothers)
It can, however, be safely assumed that all of the Car Robots toys will make it to US stores at regular cost. No word on addition molds to fill out what has become a rather slim line for Takara (compared to the hordes of Beast Machines figures from Hasbro in the same year)

Tuesday, January 16, 2001
Botcon Beyond Update.
The site has been updated with new information about characters in the 2001 storyline. Still no confirmation on exclusive toys for the convention, though one heavily supported theory is Transmetal 2 Blackarachnia. Thanks to Heinlad for the heads up.
Update: Allspark member Trentulas (the Daddy Mack to you simpletons) informs us that Botcon stories are officially endorsed by Hasbro, and not simply convention fanfiction.

Monday, January 15, 2001
Beast Machines Trailer
Though the series has ended its run, Mainframe has assembled a promo reel using mostly scenes from season 2 and featuring the Vehicon Battle Theme for background music.
To download the 6.9 MB file directly, [Click Here]

Monday, January 15, 2001
Dinobot, reborn?
Allspark member Xychodisqqo found this photo of what appears to be Rapticon, the Dinobots repaint of TM2 Dinobot. The trilingual packaging and the art of the original TM2 Dinobot on the bubble suggest this is most likely not the american release of the toy.