Rivals...? lol
I had a few before my first TFs.
Leader One, Cykill, Tank and Scooter that lamborghini one and that ambulance dude.. a coupla others..
TFs impressed me more as apart from the bigger, more detailed car Gobots, TFs seemed more elaborate somehow... cooler.... more accomplished.
Looking at say Leader one, you could very easily suss out how he transformed into his robot mode.
Then I saw a couple of the TF seekers in the catalogue. (Thundercracker or Skywarp, maybe both) and I couldn't figure out for the life of me how that Robot mode would come about from the sleek-assed jet next to it in the picture.
Then I saw Mirage, Ratchet and Jazz and it was the same. I was intrugued from then on.
As time went on, and the cartoon was released here, the gulf of difference of quality was becoming more and more evident.
It was possible to take TFs seriously, with great characters, good development, more of a "real" feel (back as a kid especially) and its movie rocked.
Where as Go-bots' silliness and naff movies that looked substandard even by regular TV standards failed to impress anyone but the younger kids in the neighbourhood.
To be honest, in the full-on-ness fo the craze, Star Wars toys was the only other toy line I'd seen people go that crazy over.
A great time but really hard on the wallets of us and our poor old parents..
But Gobots will always be the sad lad of the pack there and no mistake.
Scooter sound like Jar-Jar "f***stick" Binks.
It was all doomed from there..... 😛