Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Donatello & Party Wagon

Made By:

Jada Toys

Scale:

1/24

MSRP:

US$31.99

Overview:
Packaging (Design):	9/10
Packaging (Durability):	8/10
Casting (Body):	10/10
Casting (Interior):	10/10
Casting (Chassis):	8/10
Casting (Engine):	N/A
Paint (Exterior):	9/10
Paint (Interior):	N/A
Paint (Trim/Graphics):	10/10
Overall Panel Fit:	9/10
Total Score:	9.1/10

 

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Background

In the third episode of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, "A Thing About Rats," the Turtles commandeer Baxter Stockman's van as a way to get to Shredder quickly only to discover a bonus with the equipment left in the van by the scientist. At the start of the next episode, "Hot Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X," the team returns to Stockman's lab to outfit the van even further. Donatello rebuilds the van to include every weapon and piece of surveillance gear he could find, along with a more aggressive stance, rear spoiler, and raised "turtle shell" roof.

Packaging

Jada used their "tall" box design for the Turtle Van, with a similar tweak to their standard packaging. The background is a dense collage of art from the show, making it appear solid light gray from a distance. A full color image of the team is in the lower right, the series title is in the lower left, and "Donatello & Party Wagon" is written in bold text between the two. A large image of Don is on the end flap next to the window, under a small TMNT graphic, while the solid end flap has a large logo centered on the panel. The back panel is a single large product photo with a callout for the opening side door and a green band at the bottom for Jada's "Hollywood Rides" logo, and the bottom has the necessary legal info. Inside, the cartoon art wallpaper is repeated but now in light green. A large "City Sewer" manhole cover is printed as part of the background behind the figure. The van is screwed to the base, with plastic bands holding the hood and doors closed and a plastic tray capturing the rear. A figure of Don is screwed to the base near the front of the van. It's got a fun, somewhat silly look overall that nicely shows off the contents thanks to the oversized window.

Casting/Paint

This is an all-new tooling, and judging by the quality and detail someone at Jada must be a Turtle fan. The main body is metal, with plastic used for the roof, bumpers, spoiler, and upper rear side pods. Casting is sharp and clean, with nice smooth panels and outstanding fit - some of the panels fit so well it's not obvious which ones can open. The only noticeable gaps are along the leading edges of the front doors, where the reality of working hinges on a curved panel meant a little extra clearance was necessary. Most of the accessory items - the guns, radar, etc. - are also done in hard plastic, with the side mirrors done in a soft vinyl. The headlights and glass are clear plastic, while the light bezels are all done in chrome plated plastic.

Paint is just as good, with a pale yellow for the main body and bright grass green for the accents. The application of both is nearly flawless, with only a small amount of ghosting in the deep cuts where the side step meets the fender flares on the right side of the van. The radar and roof cannons are bright silver, orange is used for the parking lights, and red is used for the upper side pods and taillights. "Turtles" is written in light green across the spare tire cover, and the front bumper has the grimacing mouth printed in black and white. Everything is properly placed and nicely opaque.

The chassis is a relatively flat panel, with the hint of various frame rails and suspension components. The tires are fat treaded vinyl over chrome Baby Moon wheels.

Inside, we start with a forward cabin featuring a wide bench seat and basic dashboard cast in gray plastic with a single printed gauge and black yoke style steering wheel. The door panels are done in a matte equivalent of the exterior yellow. It's decent enough work, with enough details to keep things interesting while maintaining the classic cartoon aesthetic...then we get to the rear cargo are. Just as described by Donatello, Jada crammed as much as they could in here. The walls are lined with cabinets, computers, monitors, weapons, and a set of ladder rungs running up the front wall. Even the surfaces that don't have dedicated equipment are textured, like the tiled floor and rear door panels with diagonal braces. The headliner is simply the inverse of the roof panel, but it looks like a proper set of opening hatches. Inside the right door is a weapon platform, with a seat, soft vinyl four-point seatbelt, gun, and two missiles. Again, paint is limited - the weapon platform is silver with green missiles and the door panels are the same pale matte yellow as the front door panels, everything else is unpainted gray plastic. But where that's usually a fault, it does a great job of capturing the feel of the classic cartoon.

Features/Accessories

Not satisfied with making a good looking Party Wagon, Jada went the extra mile to make it as functional as possible. First, the front and rear doors open on nice basic hinges. The side door splits in half, with the bottom half folding out and down, and the upper half swinging out 90° with the weapon platform mounted on it. The gun folds vertically for storage, and can be dropped down to point forward when the door is open. Up top, both guns are hinged where they meet the roof and can be elevated separately, plus the radar can rotate 180°. The spoiler is on a ratchet slide, and can be raised or lowered to give more or less clearance between it and the roof. Finally, a 1/24 Donatello figure is included. This is possibly the best looking figure Jada has done, with near-perfect casting and paint. There's some particularly nice details like where his belt gaps in the space between his shell and plastron, the delicately sculpted ends of his eye mask, or his removable bo.

Accuracy

As far as the general aesthetic, Jada absolutely nailed it. It just "feels" right, from the overall shape to the recognizable details and familiar colors. Things get a bit messy when trying to suss out finer details, since like most cartoons of the era the artists working on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would add, remove, and change features as needed and continuity was a mere suggestion. Along the same lines, size was whatever it needed to be - in the aforementioned episode where the Van debuted, it was short enough to fit through a personnel door yet tall enough that the rear bumper came up to mid-thigh for April O'Neil and she could stand upright once inside. That makes figuring out a true scale impossible, so just know that it's roughly the size of a 1/25 A-Team van.

Overall

Jada hit this one out of the park. The casting is great, the paint work is great, even the figure is great. I usually try to come up with one or two "maybe they could have..." details at this point, but really no notes this time around. It's just that good.