An E System?
The French Joustra 1987 catalogue shows a 16-wheeled electronic crawler vehicle on p.44 and p.46. This is a product called the Star Track.
The Star Track has Blockman robots attached to it, along with the hydraulic tubes from Force 50 and Force 51 (which were never released as Robotech Changers) and two double foot modules in red (which were not available in this colour in any released set). Even more interestingly, two of the Blockman robots appear to have been fitted with a helmeted head and face, although upon closer inspection this is simply a mould drawn from the C-12 (Robotech Changers D3) super-robot head. Although nine Blockman robots are shown in the stock photography, the Star Track was advertised as containing five Blockman robots.
Was the Star Track based on plans for the unreleased Japanese E series? My feeling is that this is unlikely. It seems to be an existing electronic toy concept that Ceji-Revell simply thought that they could add some play value to by making the product Blockman compatible.
There are few points that support this opinion: (i) the Star Track is not promoted under the Robotech Changers brand; (ii) the vehicle itself doesn’t appear to be composed of modular parts, as one would expect a Blockman vehicle to be; (iii) the reuse of super-robot scale head sculpts as Blockman helmets doesn’t match the Japanese design aesthetic and scaling; and (iv) the Blockman pegs and ports appear visibly tacked onto the base mould of the Star Track, with the pegs being shaped using the underside of a Blockman double turbo exhaust, and the ports being shaped using the thruster section on top of the exhaust.
Even without being an E series concept, the Star Track is still quite a strange product! It was definitely released, although I'm unsure how widely. It's probable that it never made it out of France (or at the very least, mainland Europe). A massive Blockman Link thank-you to James Demski for getting in touch via the Blockman Link Facebook group and letting me know that the Star Track actually made it from this solicitation catalogue onto store shelves.
