Invasion Galactica

Invasion Galactica is the name given to a mysterious short-lived Argentinian toyline, which consisted of three out of Estrela's six Robocars crudely repackaged under the aforementioned title. These were presumably released to national stores in 1985, at the same time when Antex's own Estrela-derived (but nationally manufactured) Robocars also hit stores, albeit there's no evidence to suggest that they are connected to these specific releases.

The packaging for Invasion Galactica figures consists of a single-sided cardback, featuring art of a UFO shooting at the included figure. A red fireball is drawn around the figure, presumably to mask the fact that the bubbles are, in fact; just straight-up cut from the original Estrela cardbacks and pasted into the newer packaging (you can even see remnants of the Generation 1 Autobot grid design if you look closely!).

The cardbacks are void of any information regarding the manufacturer or distributor of these toys, with the closest being an "Industria Argentina" denotation on the bottom right, presumably indicating that they're nationally-manufactured products — however, given that these are the Brazilian Robocars rather than the Argentinian-made ones, this seems to be a lie that is actually quite revealing: considering everything else, the running explanation for these releases tends to be that they were actually done by Argentinian toy retailers as an attempt to mask foreign imports as domestic products so as to avoid protectionist tariffs.

Toys

Robocars Camaro (Windcharger) (red/grey or white/black) Pick-Up (Gears) (blue/red or orange/red) Sedan (white/black or blue/black)

Robocar Camaro, sold in "Invasion Galactica" packaging.

Trivia

• Another set of Estrela figures — the Bat-Robôs Turbo and Pick-Up — were also released in Argentina under very similar circumstances, under the name of "Robot-Car" and packed in mostly plain packaging with bits photocopied from Estrela's boxes. Similar to the Invasion Galactica assortment, these toys also do not feature any manufacturing or distribution information on the packaging... But unlike the Invasion Galactica batch, they seem to be entirely new copies of the Bat-Robôs, with a few deco discrepancies such as their alternate mode greenhouses being unpainted giving it away. As such, these toys are most likely bootlegs rather than legitimate Estrela-made or Estrela-licensed figures. .
  • As a funny extra bit of trivia, the bootleg version of Turbo features a new sticker sheet with sponsoring from Albilad Capital, a Saudi company with a very infamous bit of history. .