 This is the Crossfire Fast Attack Vehicle and Driver Rumbler. This vehicle and figure set were available in 1987 only. They were discontinued for 1988. The Crossfire is a radio controlled vehicle. The only one in the GI Joe toy line. There were other vehicles that were motorized but not radio controlled. You might see the radio controlled feature as a gimmick. This is not a licensed toy. This is an official GI Joe vehicle in the main GI Joe toy line. But is it really compatible with the rest of the line? We are going to take a closer look at Rumbler later but I'm going to set him aside for now so we can look at the Crossfire. The Crossfire was manufactured by Niko, a Japanese radio controlled car company. Kirk Boziggian and Greg Bernstein flew to Japan to arrange for the production of the GI Joe RC vehicle. They were shown the chassis that would fit their price point and they designed the shell to go on top of it. Guy Cassaday was the GI Joe vehicle designer who did a rough sketch of the Crossfire. He noted that the vehicle set too low so it would bottom out on rough terrain. We will test that out. On the TV commercial they are careful to only show the Crossfire driving over smooth surfaces. Even though it looks like it's driving over hills and rocks, they're actually pretty smooth so it doesn't bottom out. The blueprints specifically say to avoid driving through sand or water. The Crossfire design is very similar to other Niko radio controlled cars at the time such as the Thunder Eagle. The radio control is supposed to have a 70 foot range and there's a variation. Some of the Crossfire cars are marked with this Delta 49 while others are marked with this Alpha 27. The Crossfire is different from most RC cars at the time in that the Crossfire can hold an action figure driver. Like I said, this is not just a GI Joe licensed toy. This is an official GI Joe vehicle with an official GI Joe action figure that is supposed to be compatible with the rest of the line. The Crossfire is like a beefed up version of the 1985 awe striker. The design is similar but of course the Crossfire is much bigger and it drives on its own. The green and orange color scheme is similar to the 1986 Havoc. The orange is a bit obnoxious but this was 1987 so GI Joe hadn't gone full neon yet. It was only half neon. I don't have a physical copy of the Crossfire's blueprints but I do have this warranty that came with it. This 90 day limited warranty on GI Joe Crossfire vehicle long expired but it does warn that this warranty is void if vehicle has been damaged by accident or unreasonable use, neglect, misuse, abuse, improper service or other causes not arising out of defects in the vehicle's materials or workmanship thereon. Let's take a look at the parts and the features of the Crossfire. Even though I don't have a physical copy of the blueprints, I am using the blueprints for some of the descriptions of the features. I will point out though that there is a typo on the blueprints. Number 15 is shown twice and there is no number one. So I'm interpreting that the way I think it should go. In the front we have this black bumper. It's very wide. It goes in front of both front wheels and attached to that we have these molded in headlights also in black plastic. That's all one piece. The blueprints call these breakthrough xenon headlamps. The plastic bumper is called a desert spec ground effects airfoil. Interesting that it is a desert spec airfoil when the Crossfire is not colored for a desert environment. The front wheels have black rubber air filled tires with bridge stone stamped on the side. They are on white hubs. On the underside there is this white switch and that is for front wheel alignment. So you can adjust the alignment on those and of course they will steer with the help of the radio control. Those front wheels are attached to independent spring suspensions. So we've got some shock absorbers for those front wheels. The body is in green plastic. It's a light green but it'll still pass as an army vehicle. Even though this is similar to an existing Niko radio control car, it has a lot of details you would expect to see on a real GI Joe vehicle. I would credit Guy Cassidy for adding those details. There is a Delta 49 sticker on the nose and as already mentioned, there is the variant for the Alpha 27. They are also color coded. The Alpha 27 is red and the Delta 49 is blue. Other than the Alpha and Delta stickers on the front and the sides, the other stickers appear to be the same. There are two side mounted machine guns, one on each side. They will pivot a little more than 180 degrees. The blueprints call these spinner side mounted auto load 9mm cannons. There is a running board on each side and they have a texture pattern and each one has a foot peg. So you can peg an action figure on to ride on the outside. The running board on the starboard side is a bit smaller to make room for the recharging port and the on off switch. It has asymmetrical stickers on the side. It has a larger Delta 49 on the port side and a smaller Delta 49 on the starboard side. Again to make room for that recharging port and the on off switch. This is a recharging port. If you're using rechargeable batteries, which I am not. As far as I can tell the crossfire did not come with a cable for this, you would have to supply it yourself from your own rechargeable battery kit. The power switch has two positions on for when the vehicle is in use and off for when the vehicle is not in use to conserve battery power. The Delta 49 variant has a black switch and the Alpha 27 variant has a red switch. Around the cockpit there is a black armored windscreen with very thin viewing slots. The cockpit has a molded in seat at a center control panel and a couple joysticks on the side. No steering wheel. It also has this orange piece with hooks that go over the action figure's shoulders to hold the figure in. To put the figure in you need to bend his knees and you do have to kind of wrestle him in there but once he is in with those hooks over his shoulders he will not easily fall out. There are some molded in vents on the sides above the back wheels and there is a radio receiver antenna on the port side with a clear plastic sleeve to protect it. There should be a red triangle RC flag on the antenna that's missing on my Delta 49 variant but I do have it on my Alpha 27 version. At the back there is a spoiler still molded in that green plastic and on each side of the spoiler there is a peg so you can peg one missile on each side. The crossfire includes two of these orange missiles that peg onto the vehicles with these dumbbell shaped slots very much like traditional GI Joe missiles. Again suggesting this is supposed to be a real GI Joe vehicle. The blueprints call these Livewire SAM 19 missiles. SAM means they are surface to air missiles but they are mounted like surface to surface missiles. There is a large machine gun mounted at the center of the spoiler the whole assembly is orange there is the machine gun itself the mount and these hard sights which is a separate piece and a frequently missing part. The blueprints call these Pumper twin 20 millimeter cannons there are two large barrels and lots of technical detail it has the two sights and four grips so I guess two figures can operate this at the same time. The machine gun can elevate and rotate 360 degrees so very good range of motion on that machine gun. I just noticed the tips of those barrels are hollow so they will sort of take blast effects even though they're not really made for that they will sort of work with it. At the very back we have this black platform with a texture pattern and two foot pegs so again you can peg an action figure on the back to ride along I guess you could put two figures on there but I would suggest just one because those pegs are pretty close together and the guy riding on the back can operate that huge machine gun. Finally we get to the back wheels the back wheels have black rubber air filled tires with studded treads all over them like the front wheels they are on white hubs it looks like the motor is directly above the axle for the rear wheels and there is a spring suspension system for this whole rear assembly next to that motor there is a white switch and this is for two different speed modes for the left it is in power speed mode and to the right it is in high speed mode the underside of the crossfire is in black plastic and we have the battery compartment there is this white latch which you can turn to the side to open it up the battery lid is hinged so you won't lose that part that's nice and it takes six double a batteries. Finally we get to the controller the controller is in black plastic it has a long wire antenna with a white tip on it the sides are textured so it won't slip out of your hand there is a sticker indicating if it is the delta 49 or alpha 27 controller this is the delta 49 on the back there is a removable battery cover and it takes a nine volt battery to operate there are two control sticks on the radio controller the one on the right moves from side to side so that controls the turning so push it to the right to turn right push it to the left to turn left and it will automatically re-center when you release it the control stick on the left will move forward and backward so that will control the forward and reverse movement of the vehicle so you push it forward to move forward you push it back to move back and like the other one it will center when you release it I am outside to test out the crossfire we had some bad weather lately so I've been waiting for the ground to thaw so I could do this finally we have good weather conditions so let's see if this thing actually runs I want to test it on smooth a smooth surface and on rougher terrain I also want to test it in power speed mode and high speed mode so let's see if we can get this thing going and see how it does okay this is in power speed mode so this is supposed to be the lower speed and we're on a smooth surface so let's check this out in a rough terrain to start with but it is bottoming out so let's let's try this again so now we are still in power speed mode so I'm going to now try to drive it over the grass this is not the roughest terrain but if it can't make it over the grass then it's not going to make it over anything rougher than that so let's give it a shot ready go yeah that's exactly what I thought and so guy cast today is right the thing is set too low to ride over rough terrain it's really got to be on a pretty smooth surface that was in power speed mode now let's switch it to high speed mode and see if we can tell the difference there we go I'm going to do this on a smooth surface because as we saw there's no point in trying this on a rough surface even short grass is too rough a surface for this thing to go high speed mode that was the crossfire in power speed mode and high speed mode I did notice it went faster in high speed mode but it does set too low to go over rough terrain even short grass is too tall for this thing to ride over so it works well but it does need to be on a pretty smooth surface now let's look at rumbler his name is similar to the transformer decepticon rumble but no relation I'm sure the prototype code names for this figure included motor face downshift overdrive long gone and scrambler the scrambler code name was used through pre-production but didn't make it to the final production figure rumbler was only available with the crossfire he was not sold separately during the original run rumbler is made entirely of reused parts from earlier action figures this figure was made about as cheaply as possible but it's now considered a rare figure so it's expensive and difficult to find on the secondary market rumbler was repackaged and sold at the 1993 gi joe convention but was misnamed footloose he was packaged with 1989 recoils accessories let's look at the accessories that came with the original rumbler starting with his weapon he has this submachine gun in light gray plastic with this hanging strap that strap is a little bit delicate I do not put this in the figure's hand this is a reissue of the submachine gun that originally came with 1985 heavy metal the strap is broken on my heavy metal submachine gun but that is the same submachine gun and a different color plastic the next and only other accessory is the helmet the helmet is in brown plastic it is a reissue of the helmet that originally came with 1985 crankcase in gray plastic same helmet just a different color there was another brown crankcase helmet packaged in battle gear accessory pack number five in fact it may be the same helmet as the accessory pack let's take a look at rumbler's articulation even though he was made up of reused action figure parts he had the articulation that was standard for gi joe figures in 1987 so he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down he could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around he could bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees he could swivel his arm at the bicep all the way around this was an o-ring figure meaning the figure was held together with a rubber o-ring that looped around the inside so he could move at the torso a bit he could move his legs apart about so far he could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of rumbler and here's where you may have deja vu because there is nothing new on this action figure on his head he has sandy blonde hair and a sandy blonde mustache and eyebrows and sandy blonde eyes they didn't even bother to put his eyes in a different color than his hair this head was originally used on 1985 footloose on his chest he has an open jacket over a gray open collar zipper shirt it looks like he has a white undershirt under that on that jacket he has a triangle patch and a pocket on the left side he has an unpainted pistol and holster with an unpainted strap that goes across the chest and over the right shoulder an unpainted strap that goes over the left shoulder and those straps meet in the back this chest and back piece were originally used on 1985 heavy metal but on heavy metal those unpainted details are painted and they look much better the arms feature long brown jacket sleeves there's a pocket of some kind on the upper left sleeve and he has green gloves again this is a reuse of the arms from heavy metal his waist piece is in tan plastic with an unpainted belt with unpainted pouches on the side and back pockets and a silver belt buckle this waste piece is a reuse of the part from 1985 bazooka but of course bazooka has more paint his legs feature tan trousers with large pockets on each of the upper legs he has green boots with some straps around them not a lot of detail on those legs these legs once again are a reuse of parts from bazooka for once he does not have less paint than the original let's take a look at rumbler's file card yes he did have a real gijo file card it has his factionist gijo it has a portrait of rumbler here taken from the artwork on the vehicle box his codename is rumbler he is the rc crossfire driver his filename is earl bob swilly his primary military specialty is fast attack vehicle driver secondary military specialty is armorer small arms i don't think his arms are that small his birthplace is rayford north carolina and his grade is e4 this hot paragraph says rumbler's future as a revenue agent was cut short by his propensity toward high speed car chases through the piney woods in pursuit of moonshiners and tax stamp dodgers after totaling seven government vehicles it was thought to be in the national interest for rumbler to transfer to a branch of service equipped with sturdier vehicles and dedicated to the pursuit of individuals and organizations less inclined to sue the government the second paragraph has a quote it says what you do is sling rumbler and his crossfire under a heavy lift chopper and drop them on the run from 20 feet up 50 miles behind enemy lines sort of like dropping a weasel in a hen house you know you're gonna see some feathers fly finally this last section says the name earl bob swilly does not identify any known living person well that contradicts the rest of it this disclaimer is usually printed on the vehicle box not on the card itself even though this is a throwaway character this file card does seem like it was written by larry hamma it has his flair rumbler sounds like a character from the dukes of hazard larry had some fun with this one looking at how the crossfire and rumbler were used in gi joe media the crossfire was only animated for commercials and as far as i can tell rumbler was never animated in the gi joe comic book published by marvel comics a character called rumbler appeared in issue number 80 but he is mislabeled it's actually armadillo the driver of the rolling thunder they just mistakenly called him rumbler the crossfire does not appear in that issue the crossfire without rumbler did make an appearance in the comic book in issue number 131 in that issue the crossfire was used as a remote control car with no driver that is a very meta use for the crossfire it's also remarkable because that issue is from 1992 well after the toy was discontinued