Joustra
Joustra ("Jouets de Strasbourg") was a French toy company, a subsidiary of Ceji (Compagnie Générale du Jouet), that held the license from Takara to distribute Diaclone and Micro Change toys in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany in 1984 and 1985. Following a brief interlap during with both Joustra-branded Diaclone toys and Milton Bradley-branded Transformers toys were available in the same European markets in 1985, Hasbro/MB signed a deal with Joustra that gave Hasbro unrestricted access to all the figures Joustra previously held the license for. In return, Joustra provided their facilities to Hasbro/MB and manufacturered several Transformers toys before declaring bankruptcy.
History
Joustra was founded in Strasbourg, a city in the east of France, in 1934. The name "Joustra" is an abbreviation for "Jouets de Strasbourg", which translates as "toys from Strasbourg". In 1969, Joustra was purchased by Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild, who incorporated it into the Compagnie Générale du Jouet (CEJI), who also purchased model kit manufacturer Revell around 1979 or 1980.
In 1984, Joustra began distributing its own Diaclone line in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany under license from Takara. Despite its title, the line included not only figures from Takara's Diaclone line, but also from the Micro Change line. Because Takara was mainly focused on producing Transformers-branded toys for Hasbro's North American market from 1984 onwards, thus resulted in some bizarre transitional releases, with toys featuring factory-applied Autobot or Decepticon insignia stickers being sold in Joustra Diaclone packaging. Following the first wave in 1984, 1985 saw the release of a second wave of Joustra Diaclone figures. However, in 1985, Joustra's parent company Ceji ran into severe financial difficulties and thus struck a deal with Hasbro. As a result, the 1985 Joustra Diaclone figures are considerably rarer in the aftermarket than the 1984 wave.
In 1999, Joustra was purchased by French model kit manufacturer Heller, and is now known as Heller Joustra SA.
Connection between Hasbro/Milton Bradley and Joustra
In 1985, Hasbro Bradley introduced the Transformers brand to continental Europe through their subsidiary Milton Bradley (MB). Besides Spain, all the countries the MB-branded Transformers toys were available in were the same countries where Joustra was distributing its Diaclone line under license from Takara. This meant that any toy released by Joustra was off-limits for MB due to Joustra's exclusive contract with Takara. Since this also included Autobot leader Optimus Prime, Hasbro/MB instead declared Jetfire (a non-Takara toy that was thus not affected by Joustra's pre-existing license) Autobot leader for the time being.
When Joustra's parent company Ceji came in financial trouble in 1985, they struck a deal with Hasbro/MB.[1] The first part of the deal saw all existing unsold Joustra Diaclone stock being provided to Hasbro/MB, with the toys taken out of their packaging and put into Transformers packaging, with new sticker sheets added. This allowed for a second wave of MB-branded Transformers toys that were not part of the initial line-up, and which can all be traced back to a Joustra Diaclone figure. The hurried schedule also resulted in several oddities, such as the MB version of Tracks being red (the toy's original Diaclone colors) instead of blue (the regular Transformers version's colors), Thundercracker being sold in Starscream packaging with Starscream's sticker sheet, and, most bizarrely, Sunstreaker (whose toy, in its yellow Hasbro Transformers color scheme, was part of Joustra's Diaclone line-up), being sold in Sideswipe packaging with Sideswipe's instructions and sticker sheet.
Following the release of the Joustra Diaclone figures as MB-branded transformers, the packaging for European Transformers releases saw the branding changed from "MB" to "Hasbro", even though in many countries, the local MB subsidiaries still handled the distribution of the toys. As the second part of the Hasbro/Joustra deal, several of the 1986 European Transformers were actually manufactured by Joustra to fulfill Hasbro's massive demand for Transformers product. Oddly, the packaging for these figures alternatively credits them to Joustra, parent company Ceji, and even Revell (misspelled as "Revel"), which was another Ceji subsidiary at the time. Similar to the MB-branded figures, these Ceji-manufactured figures also included bizarre oddities such as yellow versions of the Constructicons (not to be confused with the later, non-combining European 1992 releases of the Constructicons, or the 1993 Generation 2 versions), Optimus Prime with red feet, or Pipes as a straight redeco of Huffer, rather than a retool like the US release (nicknamed "Puffer" by fans; not to be confused with a similar Huffer-in-Pipes-colors release by Mexican manufacturer Plasticos IGA, which was later also available in Europe).
Joustra Diaclone
Wave 1 (1984)
Mini-Cars
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Change Attacars
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Cars wave 1
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Dashers | Cassettes wave 1 | |||
Other
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Wave 2 (1985)
Cars wave 2
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Cassettes wave 2
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Balle / Ball
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Other
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Joustra Transformers
Milton Bradley Transformers wave 2 (repackaged Joustra Diaclone figures, 1985)
| Mini Vehicles | Cassettes | Autobot Cars | (actually Sunstreaker in a Sideswipe box) |
Other
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Hasbro Europe Transformers manufactured by Joustra (1986)
| Mini Vehicles | Insecticons | Constructicons (yellow) | Decepticon Planes |  | ||||||
Other
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External links
- Overview of Joustra's iteration of the Diaclone franchise at TF1.com (archived)
- Articles on various Joustra Diaclone toys at TF1.com (archived)
- Articles at 20th Century Toy Collector: MB Transformers part 2, MB Transformers part 4 (including the MB/Joustra connection), part 5, part 6
- French Connection
- French Transformers
References
- ↑ "MB/Hasbro and Ceji theory confirmed" at 20th Century Toy Collector.
