As part of Takara’s Diaclone line, this guy was known as Powered Convoy. I’ve talked about Powered Convoy, right? I swear I’ve mentioned Powered Convoy once or twice. Come on, you’ve gotta remember when I talked about Powered Convoy!
But this time, I’m talking about him wearing his trailer as armor, and not just as a blue repaint of Optimus Prime. Anyways.
This guy was originally an upgraded version of Convoy, the Diaclone name for Optimus Prime, with new power armor made out of his traile. Hence, “Powered Convoy.”
When Hasbro licened the mold for this guy, they turned him into a brand-new character, Ultra Magnus, and debuted him in the 1986 The Transformers: The Movie. And then there were a bunch of Ultra Magnus repaints in the original Diaclone colors. In fact, the very first teaser trailer for TFTM has Ultra Magnus in his Diaclone colors — Check it out, you can see him around 2:23-2:33
Anyways, never one to turn down transforming a variant color into a new character, a few years back, Hasbro and TakaraTomy decided that the Diaclone-colored Ultra Magnus was now a new character named Delta Magnus. But to the best of my knowledge, he hasn’t actually appeared in any new fiction.
That’s a lot of backstory for a repaint of a toy I did like 12 years ago. Sheesh.
Transformers, all the Convoys, all the Magnuses, and all the Optimuses are owned by some combination of Hasbro and TakaraTomy.