Vintage Vault: The Imperial Troop Transporter - Fantha Tracks | Daily Star Wars News (2024)

The Imperial Troop Transporter may not be the most aesthetically pleasing Star Wars vehicle to hit the toy market but its place in history cannot be understated. As I’ve just acquired an addition to my collection relating to this toy, I thought it would be interesting to have a look at why the vehicle should be appreciated more.

The Imperial Troop Transporter was released by Kenner just in time for Christmas 1979, but its history begins two years before this, as evidenced by sketch designs shown on Plastic Galaxy featuring smaller vehicle designs and by one of the pages in a binder containing early mock-ups unearthed by a fellow collector and highlighted on theswca.

It’s thanks to the diligence of early Star Wars collectors that evidence like this exists to this day and shows the iterations that vehicles like this went through. The mock-up on the right was created by Mark Boudreaux in one of his first tasks working for Kenner, before being refined by designer Tom Troy and ending up on toy shelves as the vehicle we know. It’s pretty cool to see that the vehicle was to be marketed initially as the Empire’s version of the landspeeder, but more important than that it was the first of Kenner’s forays into vehicles that did not appear in the movie – just off-camera as has often been quoted!

A closer-to-the-final-version conceptual slide, discovered in a find by Chris Fawcett and also shown on theswca, is this image above. Notice the red button on the top and what looks like a red light or button on the front – this ties directly into the prototype shown later.

Back in 1979, Hasbro legend Mark Boudreaux was just starting his career as a full-time designer with what was then Kenner. “We knew we wanted a troop transport of some type, but it had to be more than just a carrying case,” he recalls. “It needed to have fun toy features to help drive the child’s imagination and bring the fantasy to life.”

One of those features came from Boudreaux’s discovery of a compact unit that could store six pre-recorded sounds. Believe it or not, inside the 1979 troop transporter’s sound module you’ll find a speaker cone atop a stack of six small plastic records. Pushing one of the six buttons on the top of the toy activated a motor that turned the appropriate record, with a stylus creating the sounds.

The toy was essentially constructed around that sound unit. Boudreaux cut and glued together sheets of styrene to build up the shape he had in mind, creating a fully functional “one-off” model adorned with bits and pieces repurposed from toys, model kits, and miscellaneous mechanisms. – starwars.com

It wasn’t until Kim Simmons’ book The Man Who Shot Luke Skywalker Volume One that a photograph was made public that showed a prototype of this vehicle, coloured in blue and is very similar to the concept slide above. This shot shoes that the red dot at the front of the concept is actually a rocket firing accessory. Whether this was ditched for cost, legal or other reasons, the heavy weaponry didn’t really fit into the story of the attack on the Sandcrawler seen in the movie. I’d also imagine that the Stormtrooper riding the Dewback would be pretty annoyed that a cool vehicle with firing rockets was nearby as they were stumbling across the dunes in search of droids!

So, how would Kenner market the toy to kids when it cost roughly the same as popular ships like the X-Wing and Imperial TIE Fighters? Would anyone want to buy a block shaped, dull grey piece of plastic that wasn’t in the movie? The initial design made it clear from the off that certain hooks would be needed to draw kids in, namely a backstory in that the vehicle was used by the Empire to track down the Jawa Sandcrawler to find the droids, a range of playable sounds from the movie, extra features like prisoner restraints and access to compartments for various toy play. I can’t help but think that the Kenner chiefs must have seen the $$$ when the pitch highlighted that eight figures could be used with the toy and with extra space for a smaller figure like R2-D2.

The backstory…

Although the original artwork for the above backstory still exists to this day, it features no signature on it so any information on the artist or author is sadly not known although various websites suggest that former Kenner designer Tom Troy is responsible for the art. The backstory begins with Darth Vader issuing a fearsome command to his Stormtroopers to return with the Death Star plans or not to return at all! Notice that the colour of the Imperial Troop Transporter is “steel blue?” Could this be reference to the original blue vehicle as shown in Kim Simmons’ book? Also, the text refers to “Owen Skywalker” instead of Owen Lars, and in the final panel the Sandcrawler is blown to bits – again perhaps making more use of the rocket firing feature of the prototype.

The real nifty feature of this toy was the recorded sounds from the movie. Ozen Sound Company, who also worked with Kenner on their Kit 2000 voice car and other projects such as talking dolls, created a record playing module which would play one of six sounds depending on which button is pressed. These were transporter engine sound (changed from landspeeder sound in the concept stage), R2-D2, C-3PO, Stormtrooper (changed from Darth Vader in the concept stage), laser canon and a stun rifle effect. The module was a neat feat of engineering featuring all six sounds etched into grooves on a record which spun round and was read by a needle similar to a LP player. Depending on which button was pressed, the needle would play the corresponding track and incorporated a feature which would either play the sound faster or slower (although I’m not sure why anyone would want to do this). It didn’t contain six separate record discs as stated on starwars.com above.

There are many loose examples of the Imperial Troop Transporter around which supports theswca claim that these were fairly popular, despite having a relatively short shelf-life. The vehicle was released firstly in Star Wars branding by Kenner, advertised on the 31-back card, but then re-released in The Empire Strikes Back style the following year. The vehicle was also available in Canada during the early Empire releases, printing all text including that in the comic in both English and French.

Across Europe, there are different versions of this to track down. It was first released in a Star Wars box by Palitoy, featuring printed text in French highlighting it’s intention to be released for a European market also. It’s likely that the first release of these transporters were identical to the ones sold by Kenner as the vehicles match in all aspects. However, most Palitoy troop transporters have a battery cover cast in red plastic instead of the usual grey. The red Palitoy covers are most often found with The Empire Strikes Back box which although retained the Star Wars branding, had the Bounty Hunter logo offer which was an Empire promotion at the time. Be careful when sourcing battery covers; there are many reproduction versions of these cast in red, blue, black and various shades of grey.

The Palitoy box can also be found with a French sticker on the bottom left saying, “Made in France” and a special offer box covering the Palitoy logo with a Meccano one and which came with three action figures included – two Hoth Stormtroopers (oddly) and R2-D2.

Unlike the other toys specifically created by Kenner to expand on the movie’s imagination and playability, the story of this toy did not end there. The next iteration of this vehicle saw it’s electronics ripped out, new stickers applied and a rebranding as an Imperial Cruiser. I’m still shocked to this day that this isn’t the vehicle that we got over in the UK as we didn’t usually get the fancy features that American children got. I do like the stickers applied to the doors though, giving it a sense of working electronics. The Imperial Cruiser was sold exclusively through Sears and was only available in The Empire Strikes Back box.

The vehicles journey didn’t end there. It was featured in early Marvel comics such as weekly Star Wars comics released in the UK and with art from Carmine Infantino, and also in colour from Star Wars #31.

Note, the Imperial Troop Transport featured from issue #57 of the Marvel comics refers to a different flying vehicle and is not the Troop Transporter.

One of the criticisms that I have had of many of the Star Wars movies is the need to constantly be developing and releasing new ships and vehicles for little reason (other than to sell toys I guess). I was delighted to read an article before Rebels was released when Dave Filoni was quoted as saying that they needed a vehicle to move multiple troops and he remembered the Troop Transporter he had as a kid. The appearance in Rebels once again led to a resurgence in the popularity of this toy as celebrated Star Wars author Jason Fry included the vehicle in his junior novel Star Wars Rebels: Servants of the Empire book series.

However, nothing prepared the community for Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau’s brilliance in the vehicle making an appearance in The Mandalorian. That scene was one of the few where the entire Star Wars community as one clapped at a scene that could have easily fit in the original trilogy.

The most recent Imperial Troop Transporter doesn’t feature sounds but it has a lot of play value including allowing access to the interior, firing cannons and re-using a lot of style from the original toy. A true classic if ever there was one.

As stated earlier, Imperial Troop Transports are pretty easy to track down although often the sounds may not work and the prisoner restraints are missing. There are some good YouTube videos covering the repair of the record player so don’t let that put you off. Happy hunting!

Check out the latest episode of Collecting Tracks with myself and co-host Andy Preston.

Photos (c) theswca.com, Chris Fawcett, Kim Simmons/The Man Who Shot Luke Skywalker, TIG, jeditemplearchives.com, Entertainment Earth, Starwars.com