Inspired by Darren Rawlins, Our Favourite Retro Cars Transformed!

Howdy TruffleShufflers! This week we found a cracking little Tumblr page from the very talented Darren Rawlins. He’s done a series of cartoons that takes the cars from some iconic retro shows and imagines what they’d look like as TRANSFORMERS!

Have a look at his work here.... darrenrawlings.tumblr.com whilst we run down our Top 5 Transformers from Retro Shows Inspired by Darren Rawlins!

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1) First up, it’s a TruffleShuffle favourite, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Party Wagon! Built by Donatello, this awesome van came with all kinds of handy accessories, including missiles, breakaway doors, a radio broadcaster and parts of it could even be used as a ramp to get the Turtles out of trouble! We think the Transformer version would be pretty badass, especially if it had a few karate lessons from Splinter!

2) In a close second, we just had to pick the Batmobile. It’s been through dozens of crazy incarnations and hosted a vast array of mental weaponry but Darren has opted for the red-detailed one from the 60s TV show and Tim Burton’s sleek 1989 entry. Now, the TV show Batmobile displayed more gadgets than you can shake a batarang at in its 2 year run on our screens, but Burton’s incarnation famously included grappling hooks to scale walls, a bulletproof finish and one stonking great afterburner at the back. That makes for one pretty terrifying Transformer if you ask us, let’s hope he’s not a Decepticon...

3) In every Transformer team there has to be a cocky young hotshot, breaking the rules and having a little too much fun for the serious guys to handle, we reckon that role would have to go to this wonderful Back to the Future inspired mechanical man. Rawlins has really captured the Marty McFly-ness you’d hope to see in the giant self-aware incarnation of his car, the time-travelling Delorean. I just hope his flux capacitor is safely tucked away!

4) And in at number four, we need a plucky foreigner to balance out the mix a little and this Akira-inspired racing bike Transformer fits the bill nicely. The sleek lines of Shotaru Kaneda’s racing bike make for one hardcore looking Autobot, with that cyberkinetic laser blaster, you definitely wouldn’t want to get in his way. Let’s just hope he doesn’t have the same anger management issues as Tetsuo or things could get very messy...

5) Now, this team of Autobots are going to need a villain to fight and we reckon Mr Rawlins has found a dark side to the usually helpful, charming, if a little conservative, KITT from Knight Rider. What do you reckon? With his trademark red LED eyes and all-black finish, he just looks so darn mean! Packing everything from a flamethrower to tear gas canisters, coupled with his super-intelligent AI microprocessors and turbo boosted engine, KITT would make one heck of a Decepticon! Though perhaps appearances are deceiving and under his bulletproof exterior lies the same old sensitive, lovable KITT we know and love... Yeah, that’s nicer. Let’s go with that.

What do you think Truffle fans? Did we leave anyone out? Do you think there’s another famous Autobot out there worthy of a place on our Celebrity Transformer Team? Who would you want fighting for the safety of mankind if the Decepticons turned up tomorrow?

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Big thanks to Darren Rawlins for providing the inspiration for this blog, all images are copyrighted to him, check out his tumblr to see more of his retro-y cartoonish awesomeness.

And if your favourite show is on this list, why not head over to www.truffleshuffle.com to buy some cool tshirts to show off in the sunshine?

Kthxbai!

xoxo