1982 RAM

The RAM is a very simple toy, but probably the best motorbike released in ARAH. It scales well, it has weapons, and enough detail to make it interesting. It’s also very iconic (hate that word, so overused) for how associated it is with the early Joes. Rock&Roll, Breaker, and Duke are all characters I see as being closely tied to the RAM, but it jibes well with figures that came a few years later too.

For a long while I really didn’t appreciate this year of vehicles. Partly, that’s because the 25th Anniversary line provided me with a very nice FLAK, VAMP and RAM, so with only a small collection of First 13 guys, I really didn’t see the point of going back for vehicles that for the most part seemed like downgrades. 15 years later and I still haven’t bothered with a VAMP or FLAK, but the RAM stood out as something that really needed to be with the figures it was designed for. The 25th mold is way more detailed, but big handle-bars don’t really mean much to figures that can’t dream of holding them. I think the added detail also alienates the newer mold a bit, as although it’s nice, it looks out of place with figures that are 25 years older.

The RAM is a really solid vehicle. GI Joe motorbikes tend to not be the most stellar items, from my own experience I don’t like quite of few of the others I’ve handled like the LCV Recon Sled, or the Ninja Lighting, and while I’ve never had one myself, from what I can tell the Silver Mirage is basically just a lousier version of this with copy-pasta missiles all over it. I think a major issue they run into, is that a good bike-ridding pose is somewhat difficult for articulated toys to achieve. Modern toys still struggle at this a bit, and classic o-ring joes especially struggle.

So the RAM sort of sidesteps some of this by having no handle-bars at all, figures just kind of hug it and play pretend. It’s a side-effect of being designed for toys that didn’t even have elbow pivots, but amusingly I think it works better in practice than some of the later attempts at bikes. The bike features a pair of removable saddle-bags, a kick-stand, and a removable gatling-cannon as it’s other features. It’s somewhat simple, but that’s really all it needs to be, so it excels at doing it’s job very well.

The only real flaw with the RAM is that it’s hard as fudge to find a mint one, which might be another way of saying it’s prone to damage? It has these little posts at the bottom of the bike, and I notice more often than not they’re cracked off (Semi-related: the box photos of the prototype depict these as pegs, but on the toy they’re wider.). The kickstand is also pretty fragile, and sometimes even the gun will have it’s connecting pegs snagged off. To me, it doesn’t really feel fragile, but it’s now upwards of 41-years-old, so I attribute most of this simply to time.

Which leads into pricing: Although the RAM is a very common vehicle, it’s also pretty hard to find a decent, unbroken one. $20 seems to be the average price for a good one, though something I found surprising is that plenty of ones that were broken would still hit around $20. My copy is a damaged one too, but I bought it on a whim at an estate sale years ago, mainly because it was in a vintage Matchbox case I wanted, with a handful of other small goodies for something like $5.

1983 Clutch

For most of my collecting years, I’ve typically ignored a lot of the ‘82/’83 First Thirteen Joes. I see the characters as being an integral part of the GI Joe universe, though at the same time, most of those toys leave something to be desired relative to the prices they maintain. 39 years ago, I think most of these were a lot more tolerable. For me though, it’s a little hard to justify ‘83 Hawk for example, when ‘86 Hawk is a nicer alternative, that’s a heck of a lot cheaper. Clutch, doesn’t fall into this dynamic quite as much.

Of the 1982 cast, certain figures had a little more individuality than others. Clutch happens to be one of those figures, as he has a unique torso, and only had to share his head with Breaker and Rock&Roll. It doesn’t put him in quite the same position as Stalker, or maybe even Snake Eyes, but he is a lot stronger than Short-Fuze, or Grand Slam. Even the reused head seems more forgivable, as beards tend to obscure your facial shape, which kind of makes people in real-life with full beards look more generic.

Of course, I think what makes Clutch for virtually everyone is his appearance in the Marvel comics. I didn’t particularly care for the character until I read the first Marvel issues sometime around ‘08. He stood out to me as one of the more fun and vibrant characters in those early issues, and it solidified my interest in his figures a lot more. Prior to that, I knew GI Joe through Sunbow reruns and the ’87 movie, where most of the ’82 cast plays almost no role.

Of course, most of the Clutch toys out there are relatively blase. Not a lot of bad ones, just not a lot of good ones, either. Besides this toy and it’s ‘84 recolor, there’s a Mega Marines figure who looks nothing like Clutch, a very mediocre Spy Troops figure, a comic-pack figure with anemic skin and a pea-head, a better looking and more expensive convention figure, and then a few post-25th releases of the character. Compared to the other attempts, the 25th and POC figures aren’t so bad really, but they’ll never look right with an o-ring collection, leaving this figure and the ‘84 release as the only decent representations of Clutch.

V1 Clutch is a fairly good looking figure. The unique torso is nice and leaves a strong impression at time when half of the figures on shelves had Grunt’s torso. The head is a fine sculpt as well, and didn’t age as poorly compared to later figures in the same way that Hawk and Grunt’s ugly mugs did. For a guy who’s just meant to sit in a jeep all day, there’s a surprising amount of care that was put into him.

His only accessory is a helmet, which isn’t of much detriment to him. It’s the same generic piece used on him and almost every other ‘82 Joe, but the toy was designed for the helmet and it looks good on him. I have always sort of wished there were some more pistols from this point in the line, as the Joes were fairly lacking in sidearm options in these first few years. The best you can give him is Snake Eye’s uzi or Mutt’s MAC-10, but there’s not a really good M1911 or anything like that.

Getting a good Clutch is surprisingly not too hard. At the current market’s prices, you can get a complete Clutch with a passable VAMP for $40 if you look around. A lot of Clutches sell for around $30, but he should really be worth less than that, especially when you consider that ones with the VAMP don’t go for much more. Also worth noting, that I’ve seen at least a couple of Clutches show up with swivel-arms, and fat crotches, implying that some people are passing off poorly pieced together frakenstiens of the ‘82 and ‘83 figure, as a legit example of either one.