After writing Cheetor and Ravage and how they shared toys I figured why not write about the third member of this little club and that is none other then Tigatron. This should prove to be one of my smallest entries since both of the other cats had a lot to write about.

In the beast wars cartoon of 1996 Tigatron‘s status pod was the first to touch down and in an area called the “frozen north” of Prehistoric Earth. His identity circuits were heavily damaged and he was unable to remember friend from foe, He stayed in beast mode and patiently watched the Predacon and Maximal forces duke it out over his empty stasis pod. He finally realized he was a Maximal when Megatron threatened him and the white tiger he had scanned. Transforming, he quickly dispatched the Predacons but chose to stay in the wild and not return to the Maximal base. He would send the maximals weekly updates and even join in on the odd mission when needed. He soon formed a serious relationship with the female bird Maximal by the name of Airazer. The two were abducted by the alien entity the Vok, who removed their sparks and merged their bodies in one of the most powerful transformers in the Beast wars. Two members of Vok inhabited the now entitled Tigerhawk and went to serve justice on all the transformers on prehistoric earth for messing around in time travel and sticking their noses in the Vok‘s experiment called Earth. thanks to Tarantulas who captured the bird-tiger thing and successively removed the alien’s from the being but he was presumed destroyed. Cheetor was able to save the now inert Tigerhawk allowing the merged sparks of Tigatron and Airazer to inhabit the body and truly become Tigerhawk who had memory problems. When Megatron found the Original Megatron‘s ship the Nemesis and prepared it to use it to kill all the Maximals and leave earth but due to the brave actions of Tigerhawk who was killed by the ship’s main guns allowed enough time for Rhinox to crash a shuttle from the Autobot’s ship the Ark and the Nemesis crashed foiling Megatron‘s plans. So now that I explained his back story lets get into the toys:

• HASBRO 1996 – Deluxe class Tigatron: A repaint of Cheetor in cream with black stripes, silver, and green, transforms into a generic big cat. In robot mode, he is armed with a rifle made out of his hindquarters and tail, along with a second water-squirting “gut gun” formed out of his stomach. As with most early Beast Wars toys, he features a flip down “mutant head” that replaces his face.

• TAKARA 1997 – Deluxe class Tigatron: This version is in white instead of cream and less silver and more green. But basically the exact same toy.

• TAKARA 1997 – Deluxe class Tigatron VS Blackwidow 2 pack: He came with with the Predacon Blackarachnia. Both toys are identical to their individual Japanese releases.

• HASBRO – 1999: Ultra class Transmetal 2 Tigerhawk: One of the biggest in the line, this is the merged form of Tigatron and Airazer. He is a half-robotic, half-organic, flying robot tiger-falcon creature in White, Metallic Blue, some green and black.

• HASBRO – 2001: Deluxe class Transmetal Tigatron: is a redeco of Beast Wars Metals Ravage which in turn was a heavy retooling of Transmetal Cheetor, He transforms into a robotic big cat, with flip-out thrusters for a flight mode. His forearms each have a spring-loaded flip out pistol stub, which can be extended with add-on barrels that clip to his rear legs in beast mode. His tail also can detach to form a whip-weapon, His’s chest opens to reveal a flat panel with a factory applied spark chamber sticker with the option to apply one of several stickers including Maximal and Wreckers faction symbols. His fore arms do not form his cat form’s head like that of Cheetor but his head just tilt’s up to resemble Beast Wars Ravage‘s appearance in the cartoon. He was A BotCon 2001 exclusive.

Hasbro – 2006: Deluxe class Unit 2 (Tigatron): is a redeco of Cybertron Clocker using “Axalon Cheetor”‘s new headsculpt, transforms into a Cybertronian race car with a large Maximal emblem on his hood and a tiger striped-pattern deco for his upholstery. He was available only to BotCon 2006 pre-registration guests. He was predominantly Metallic green and white with silver and black detailing. (I presume that Unit 1 was Cheetor)  

• TAKARA 2007 – Deluxe class Telemocha Series Tigatron: An extensive repaint of the original toy in white with more detailed stripes with outlined fangs and black nails on his feet, but basically the exact same toy.

• Takara – 2010: 2GB thumb drive Tigatron: He is White with black stripes and stored on the drive is an installable program called “Transformers Desktop Defender.” When plugged in, a Tigatron avatar appears on the screen, transforming the thumb drive to tiger mode as the program is activated. You can rename your tiger, alter the movement speed and personality, view his function, mission, and tech spec numbers. He can appear as Cheetor, Ravage, or Tigatron and he can eat your desktop icons. He is repaint of Cheetor by the Japanese name Cheetus.

• The HASBRO Tigatron shown at Toy Fair in 1996 was cast in orange plastic instead of cream-colored, giving him a more “traditional” tiger look. The change to a “white” tiger has so far been unexplained. This toy is thought to be one of a kind and most likely was given to a staff member as with the practice of Hasbro doing so in the past.

• Tigatron was originally intended to be a retooling of the mold, rather than a simple repaint, changing his beast mode head and a lot of his robot mode parts but not the face as well as giving him some kind of weird gun. He was also intended to be female at first as well. The original concept art for Tigatron, shown in the “Beast Wars Reborn Golden Disc“:

Well that is it, He was one of only a few transformers with a love life, and then they were merged together then tragically killed off but when ever Hasbro or Takara feels the need to save some money by repainting something, Tigatron gets a new toy when Cheetor and / or Ravage gets one as well.