Identifying and Grading Kenner Vehicles
A complete M.A.S.K. vehicle is a body surrounded by pieces that were designed to leave it: masks the size of a thumbnail, missiles that fire, tabs that snap a wing into place, and a comic and a poster in the box. Grading one is therefore mostly a question of what has wandered off, and this guide is organised around finding out.
How the line is organised
Kenner sold the line in 1985 and the line ran to 1987 or 1988 depending on whom you ask. Series 1 arrived in 1985 with eight vehicles, five for the team and three for V.E.N.O.M., and a single playset, Boulder Hill, which is the headquarters and turns out to be the only playset Kenner released for the whole line. Series 2 followed in 1986 with eight more vehicles and introduced the Adventure Packs, which are single figures on blister cards, and the figure two-packs. Series 3 in 1987 was built around the second season of the cartoon, and Series 4, called Split Seconds, came in 1987 or 1988 with vehicles that divide into two and a computer-image twin of each driver.
Wikipedia dates Series 4 to 1987 to 1988 and says it came out a year after the cartoon ended, and we use that span. The useful consequence for a collector is that dealer titles often carry the wrong year, and the dealer records we read have Fireforce dated 1988, Manta dated 1985 although it belongs to Series 3, and Barracuda 1988. Trust the series and the vehicle name before you trust a year.
What should be in the box
Every vehicle set in the line held a vehicle, one or two figures, a mask for each figure, a few accessories, a comic book and a poster, and the Toy Collectors Guide says the comics and posters have become collectible in their own right. The tables below set out the masks and accessories for each series as that guide lists them. They are a place to start and not an authority: the guide admits copy errors on its Series 3 page, one Series 2 note calls Raven’s driver by a different name, and we have not opened a boxed example of each set to count the pieces ourselves.
Series 1 (1985)
Eight vehicles and the Boulder Hill playset. Each vehicle set also held a comic book and a poster.
| Set | Figure or figures | Mask or masks | Accessories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Condor | Brad Turner | Hocus Pocus | none besides the mask |
| Firecracker | Hondo MacLean | Blaster | boomerang tire, left and right freeze cannons, dirt bike mount |
| Gator | Dusty Hayes | Backlash | atom blaster, barrel depth charge |
| Rhino | Bruce Sato and Matt Trakker | Lifter, Ultra Flash | radar dish, rocket |
| Thunderhawk | Matt Trakker | Spectrum | two stun bombs, left and right wing blasters |
| Jackhammer | Cliff Dagger | Torch | air defense gun |
| Piranha | Sly Rax | Stiletto | none besides the mask |
| Switchblade | Miles Mayhem | Viper | bomb |
| Boulder Hill | Buddie Hawks and Alex Sector | Penetrator, Jackrabbit | radar panel and sign, jail cell, armored bunker, hoses and cables, boulder |
Series 2 (1986)
Eight more vehicles, plus the Adventure Packs and figure two-packs listed in the next section.
| Set | Figure or figures | Mask or masks | Accessories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Firefly | Julio Lopez | Streamer | Super Stun Atomizer |
| Hurricane | Hondo MacLean | Blaster II | Terror Space Land Mine, mini cutting laser |
| Raven | Calhoun Burns | Gulliver | immobilizer disks |
| Slingshot | Ace Riker | Ricochet | Laser Tracer Bomb |
| Volcano | Matt Trakker and Jacques LaFleur | Lava-Shot, Maraj | turret harness, wheel hubs, sun roof |
| Outlaw | Miles Mayhem and Nash Gorey | Python, Powerhouse | poison pod shell missiles, fanged grappling hook, radar scanners, antenna, power pack and cable |
| Stinger | Bruno Sheppard | Magna-Beam | sniper scope cannons, mortar |
| Vampire | Floyd Malloy | Buckshot | retro rockets, windshield |
Series 3 (1987)
Twelve sets built around the second season. The source page flags copy errors in its Razorback and Buzzard entries, so check those two against a second source.
| Set | Figure or figures | Mask or masks | Accessories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billboard Blast | Dusty Hayes | Vacuum | high powered missile |
| Bulldog | Boris Bushkin | Comrade | chainsaw tongue, radar-disruption shell missile |
| Bullet | Ali Bombay | Vortex | grappling hook, windshield |
| Goliath | Matt Trakker and Nevada Rushmore | Shroud, Totem | missiles, rear wing, steering wheel |
| Meteor | Ace Riker | Cruise Control | stun bomb, two torpedo missiles |
| Razorback | Brad Turner | Eclipse | prism missile |
| The Collector | Alex Sector | Disruptor | two mortar cannons |
| Wildcat | Buddie Hawks | Ditcher | tow hitch, six discs |
| Buzzard | Miles and Maximus Mayhem | Flexor, Collider | Super Stun Atomizer |
| Iguana | Lester Sludge | Mudslinger | circular sawblade, seat |
| Manta | Vanessa Warfield | Whip | escape seat |
| Pit Stop Catapult | Sly Rax | Sawblade | three stacked tires |
Series 4, Split Seconds (1987 to 1988)
Each vehicle splits into two and the set holds an agent figure and a computer-image figure, each with a mask.
| Set | Figure or figures | Mask or masks | Accessories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Afterburner | Dusty Hayes | Backlash, two | sonar missile, sting bomb |
| Detonator | Jacques LaFleur | Maraj, two | two thunder missiles, mortar units, turbine, swiveling gunner seat |
| Dynamo | Bruce Sato | Lifter, two | fusion bomb, power uzzis |
| Fireforce | Julio Lopez | Streamer, two | bumper bomb, immobilizer bomb, chopper handles |
| Skybolt | Matt Trakker | Spectrum, two | fin missile, nose missile |
| Stiletto | Gloria Baker | Collider, two | satellite missile, two slicker missiles, laser blaster |
| Barracuda | Bruno Sheppard | Magna-Beam, two | two laser tracers, boomerang atom blaster, Super Stun Atomizer |
| Vandal | Floyd Malloy | Buckshot, two | torpedo cannon missile, two sting detonator missiles, fog launchers |
| Wolfbeast | Miles Mayhem | Viper, two | two missiles, heat rocket, gatling guns |
| Laser Command (Hornet and Ratfang) | Matt Trakker and Miles Mayhem | Laser Flash, Raynet | two vehicles in one set |
Series 4 had one accessory set sold on its own, Laser Command, which holds the two vehicles Hornet and Ratfang. The Toy Collectors Guide calls it the only separately sold Kenner accessory for the line and says it did not sell well at release, and Wikipedia adds that it never appeared in the show. Hornet is a crate that opens into an aerial attack vehicle, and Ratfang is a V.E.N.O.M. truck that Wikipedia describes as a blue redeco of Firecracker with a camper shell, so a Ratfang is worth comparing with a Firecracker before you decide what you are looking at.
Masks
The mask is the line’s signature and also its most losable part, because each one is a small plastic helmet that fits a figure’s head and the vehicles need no mask to function. Wikipedia lists the power of each: Thunderhawk’s Spectrum for sound waves and visual spectrums, Rhino’s Ultra Flash for a blinding burst, Switchblade’s Viper for corrosive poison and Piranha’s Stiletto for armor-piercing harpoons, with dozens more across the four series. Series 4 doubled the count by giving every set two masks, one for the agent and one for the computer-image figure, and the Toy Collectors Guide lists them as the same mask twice, while Wikipedia lists the second as a new version (New Backlash, New Lifter, New Maraj and so on).
Three things in the sources help when you are checking a mask. First, the masks are named, so a seller who photographs the figure with its helmet on and the name of the vehicle beside it has told you most of what you need. Second, the dealer records we read treat a missing helmet as a listed fault, and one Arctic Assault record reports a mask that had gone stiff and hardened without breaking, which is a condition to ask about on any mask that has spent forty years in a drawer. Third, the sources disagree about whose mask is whose in two places: the Toy Collectors Guide puts the Penetrator and Jackrabbit masks with the figures in the Boulder Hill set, while Wikipedia lists Jackrabbit under Rhino and Penetrator under Firecracker and Hurricane. Until a boxed example settles it, treat any mask attribution outside the vehicle’s own set as a claim.
Grading
No grading authority publishes a standard for loose Kenner vehicles that we could find, so the most consistent scale we can point to is a dealer’s. Wheeljack’s Lab rates its items from 1 to 100, with mint flawless at 100, near mint at 95 and excellent at 90, and grades the box, the stickers and the joints separately. The highest rating we saw on a loose vehicle was 92, on a Wildcat described as near mint, so a loose vehicle sold as mint is a claim to check against the photographs.
The dealer’s notes show what the numbers stand for. Light wear and a need for cleaning sit around 85, an obvious fault such as a cracked tire or a missing sunroof sits around 80, and the notes say what is broken in words, for instance that a tail peg has snapped off but the tail is included, or that the driver’s side mirror is broken. Sticker wear is reported on most vehicles as a separate line, since the sticker sheet was applied by the child, and peeling stickers are the ordinary state of an unrestored vehicle. Boxes are described by their flaps, tears, crushing and tape repairs, and the sold records on our grails page include a Rhino in a heavily worn box, a Bulldog with a taped hole and a Volcano with a pushed-in lid, each with the dealer’s note beside it.
Cleaning is routine and the dealer does it. Repair and replacement are another matter, and a good listing says so: one Boulder Hill record in our archive states that the hoses are reproductions while calling the playset complete, which is honest and also the kind of detail a collector would want in the title.
Missing-part traps
The same few vehicles fail in the same few places, according to the condition reports we read, and the pattern is worth knowing before you buy. Switchblade is the clearest case: reports describe broken clips or tabs that hold the wings back, missing rotor blades and a bomb that did not survive, and one stress mark where a blade meets the rotor. Rhino reports mention broken mirrors, a rocket that will not lock into place, a broken peg and wear to the chrome, along with an all-terrain vehicle that the dealer did not always test. Goliath records mention a spoiler with a broken tab, Condor records a tab that holds the blades down, Piranha records a missing windshield, and Wildcat and Raven records missing discs.
The accessories that vanish are the ones a child would fire or lose: missiles on Bulldog, Slingshot and Razorback, the Terror Space Land Mine on Hurricane, the sniper scope cannons and mortar on Stinger, the retro rockets on Vampire, and the hoses on Boulder Hill. For Outlaw the dealer reports a missing power pack hose. A seller’s claim of 100 percent complete is a claim, and the dealer’s own template carries a caution to verify completeness against the pictures, which is the right advice for every listing.
Paper and stickers belong on the same list. The sticker sheet is an unapplied sheet in an unbuilt toy, and sheets for particular vehicles are sold on their own, as are the instruction sheets. Reproduction decals exist too: we saw listings for a reproduction Condor mask decal sheet and for custom comic-logo stickers, each described by its seller as an aftermarket item, so a vehicle with crisp stickers is not automatically a mint one.
Variants and regional differences
Wikipedia and the Toy Collectors Guide agree that European releases differ from North American ones, and they agree on little else. Wikipedia says European box art was revised so that vehicle weapons were not shown firing, that three vehicles were renamed (Bulldog became Bulldoze, Bullet became Bandit and Barracuda became Jackal), and that Europe received four adventure packs the North American market did not, along with extra two-packs of redecorated figures. Two toys were Europe only: Sea Attack, a small attack boat for Hondo, and Arctic Assault, an armed jetpack for Raven that uses the Gulliver mask.
Packaging changed between series. The Toy Collectors Guide says the Series 4 box in the United States was redesigned with a silver grid and large yellow vehicle names, while foreign releases kept the bright red packaging of the earlier waves, and that US Series 4 vehicles are hard to find because Kenner made few of them. Wikipedia records that Shark, Gloria Baker’s Porsche 928 in the cartoon, was never released as a toy, and that Ramp-Up and Thunderball were planned for Split Seconds and never issued, which is useful when someone offers you one.
Three search traps come with the territory. A search for The Mask returns the 1994 Jim Carrey film’s lunch boxes, games and figures, in the same eBay results as the 1985 line. A search for masks returns party masks, and a Kenner birthday mask is a different object from the figure helmets. And a dealer title will sometimes use a European name or a wrong year, so search by the vehicle’s character as well as its name.
Before you buy
- Match the vehicle to the right series and check the accessories against the tables above, then against a second source, because the sources we read contain errors.
- Ask for photographs of every mask and the figure wearing it, and ask whether any have hardened.
- On Switchblade, check the wing clips, the rotor blades and the bomb. On Rhino, check the mirrors, the rocket, the peg and the all-terrain vehicle. On Boulder Hill, ask whether the hoses are original.
- Ask how the stickers stand and whether any are replacements or reproductions.
- If the listing says boxed, ask about the flaps and the insert, and whether the comic and poster are in it.
- Read the date as a guess and the series as a fact.
What this guide rests on
Everything above comes from pages we opened on 2026-10-30. The Toy Collectors Guide series pages for Series 1, 2, 3 and 4 and its overview page gave the set contents, the packaging notes and the scarcity remarks; we use its checklist and not its dollar values. Wikipedia’s List of M.A.S.K. toys and characters gave the series structure, the European differences, the unreleased toys and the mask powers. Agents of M.A.S.K.’s collecting resources page pointed us to collector sites and to the Shout! Factory DVD set. The condition reports are the public sold records of Wheeljack’s Lab, read in full for its category on the line, and the listing examples come from eBay searches run through the eBay Browse API on the same date. We have not handled the toys ourselves, we have no authoritative mask census, and where a fact is a single seller’s statement we have said so. Corrections are welcome.