Build:
Body, arms, upper legs: 25th Clutch
Lower legs: 25th Duke
Hands: 25th Tiger Force Flint
Head: 25th Lift-Ticket
Gun holster: 25th Breaker
Belt: 25th Zap (holster removed)
Helmet(s):
(a) 25th breaker w/ goggles
(b) 25th Zap w/o goggles
Paints:
Gloves, boots, trim: Tamiya Flat Brown
Uniform: Testors Medium Green
This figure is part of my GI Joe OG13 25th Classic Set, one of seven OG13 sets in my collection. He was first finished and photographed in 2018 with the others, but I forgot to add him with the rest of the set previously.
Clutch is probably my favorite O13 character whose figure I never had as kid. Hats off to Larry Hama, who used the heck out of him is the early years in the comic, bringing a bit of levity to those early missions, and making Clutch the last to make my Essential 7 of the O13 based on those comics.
As a big fan of the early comics, I really needed a Clutch to have a smile or a smirk, and a five o'clock shadow instead of a beard. The Lift-Ticket head ends up as the best option for this, and was immediately swapped as soon as I had it in hand. This larger head, however, needed a larger helmet, with the Breaker helmet being the only one available as extra fodder for many years.
The googles were added to hopefully mask the large nature of the helmet and made sense for the driver (no windshield on that VAMP, right?). As an alternate no-goggle look, I later got an extra medium size Zap helmet on the head, which also works out okay. To this day, I still can't pick either look as my final.
The gloved hand sculpts were just long enough hand pieces to replace those dreaded slit wrist Duke arms-as I was trying to go for a bit more unique arm look from my previous Breaker and Rock 'n Roll. My limited supply of the improved bare arms could then all go to the Breaker figures set. The gloves also seemed somewhat natural for a driver (cold steering wheel on that VAMP, right?).
The lower legs were switched to make him stand a little bit shorter, as he stands a bit taller than I'd hoped when next to Breaker, Stalker, and Snake Eyes. And, in the end, five of the figures end up with the Zap type boots, and five end up with the Snake Eyes type boots-for a nice balance of mold types. There was a little x-acto knife work involved with the vest at the shoulders and the waist, to better accommodate the new head and belt.
The gun holster on the Zap belt was cut off because he originally had too many holsters (counting the ones on the vest and original lower leg). But once I switched the lower legs and lost that holster, I wanted yet another holster and used the Breaker/Duke upper right leg one (short supply of Zap belts at the time).
Finally, the figure's greens were fully repainted-so that all parts and vest would match. As with all the figures of this OG13 set, a different shade of green was used for each figure on purpose-to give a subtle variety to all the greenshirts and to break away from the green groupings of the vintage figures (letting me keep some guys from needing repaint).
