Takara Toys' 1982 Micro Change series of toys were part of the 1980 New Microman toy line and were small household objects that could transform into vehicles or artificially intelligent robot characters that fought alongside their 10-centimeter tall alien cyborg Microman creators against the evil Acroyears.
The line was combined with Takara's 1982 Car-Robots series of Diaclone toys by Hasbro in 1984 to create the Transformers. The transformers Megatron, Soundwave, Blaster, cassettecons/casettebots, Perceptor, Reflector, and several Mini Cars (Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Windcharger, Huffer, Gears, and Brawn) came from this line.
References
Micro Change Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA