There have been a lot of tracked Joe vehicles released. Starting with the MOBAT and continuing through modern vehicles like the Patriot Grizzly, the GI Joe team has not exactly wanted for armored vehicles. But even with all those vehicles to choose from, there’re not a whole lot of armored personnel carriers in the fleet. Sure, the Joes have the ’83 APC, but it’s got a canvas cover over the troop-carrying area. Unless that cover’s stitched with Kevlar, it won’t exactly offer a lot of protection to the guys in the back.
There is one Joe vehicle out there that cannot only hold a decent amount of troops; it can offer those troops a decent amount of protection, too. That vehicle is the Warthog. Please note that the one pictured below is the 2002 Toys R Us exclusive Night Rhino, which is the exact same vehicle as the ’88 Warthog, just black with silver missiles and tan accents instead of olive drab with gray accents and yellow missiles.
Warthog is an appropriate name for this vehicle, because it’s not exactly pretty. It’s square and angular, pretty much a box on tank tracks. The bottom front of the hull is angled downward towards the rear, like a boat. The tracks sit outboard of the main body. At the top front middle of the Warthog is a vented hatch that can be removed for engine access. Also on top of the vehicle are three hatches, one at the front left, and two on either side in the vehicle’s middle. There is a machine gun to the front right of the right hatch. Also just in front of the hatch on either side are six-barreled smoke grenade launchers. A turret dominates the top rear of the vehicle, on top of which sit two large missiles. At the left rear of the Warthog is a large, angled-to-the-rear antenna. There are two large hatches on either side at the very rear of the Warthog. Also at the rear is a step bar that includes a standard GI Joe hitch for towing vehicles like the HAL and the Mountain Howitzer.
I mentioned those hatches…so, what’s underneath them? The very front hatch pivots to the right or left, and reveals a forward facing bucket seat that appears to be reclined at a comfortable angle. The right middle hatch opens upward, and also has a forward facing seat, but it looks like the occupant has more legroom here. The left rear hatch also opens to the rear, but the seat on the inside faces to the middle of the vehicle (the occupant’s back is to the left side of the outer hull). There’s two control panels here…this looks like the seat that would control the missile system.
The two hatches to the rear open up batwing style, and reveal a decent-sized troop storage area. There’s room for six figures to sit back here, two on either side and two at the rear. The figures are held in place with bars that snap into a hole in the center of the seating section. There’s room for a few more figures to stand in the middle rear of the troop area.
One other note about the Warthog/Night Rhino: I’ve never tried it personally, but according to both the Warthog’s ’88 box and the Night Rhino’s ’02 box, this vehicle can actually float. And looking at the solid, one-piece lower hull it looks like it would INDEED float. I don’t know how well it floats or how many figures you can stuff inside before it sinks. Waterlog your OWN toys if you want to find out!
I can’t find too many flaws with the Warthog/Night Rhino. If I had the original ’88 version I’d probably complain about the big yellow missiles. That just seems flat dumb to me…”Hey, we’ve got this vehicle that’s otherwise camouflaged up pretty well, lets stick some giant yellow attention-grabbers right on top of it!” Fortunately, MY version carries not-much-more-camouflaging, but much more military looking, silver missiles. Like every other Joe vehicle with one, the antenna can be easily broken. The only other complaints I have are that 25th/RoC figures don’t fit in it too well (of course I can’t complain too much, because it wasn’t DESIGNED for them) and that it’s not that heavily armed besides the big missiles. Another machine gun on the other side or a cannon somewhere would have made me much more fond of the Warthog…though I guess when the crap hits the fan, all the troops bailing out of the back could probably throw out plenty of firepower. Oh yeah, and it’s hard to fit figures in the rear middle spots in the troop compartment, too.
If you want one, well, I’ve seen Warthogs go for some ridiculous amounts…but $40-60 seems to be about the going loose rate, whether you want the ’88 version or the ’02 version. I’ve always liked armored vehicles that had spaces for figures to actually fit down inside them, so I have a soft spot for the Warthog…and this explains why I was so excited to get my hands on the Night Rhino back in ’02, since I missed out on the original. It’s a worthy addition to your Joe collection, and can easily carry a heavily armed team across just about any terrain, including water. There’s a lot of Joe armored vehicles out there, but this is definitely one worth picking up. It’s not the prettiest thing around, but it gets the job done.
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