Dave's TF Rant: most of the Speedia 500 collection

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers Legacy Rant: Velocitron Speedia 500 Collection

Cybertron Universe Override (Velocitronian race car)
Blurr (retool of Studio Series Blurr)
Diaclone Universe Burn Out (Legacy Skids retool)
Autobot Cosmos (UFO)
G2 Universe Road Rocket (Legacy Arcee retool)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/Speedia500

Intentionally passing on Diaclone Universe Clampdown (really kinda tired
of that mold), Road Hauler (not much interest in a third take on that mold in
Constructicon green, even with the new shouty face), and Robots In Disguise
2000 Universe Scourge (Laser Optimus didn't impress me enough to want a
second Leader toy using that mold).
Clampdown and Cosmos were initially hard to get, with Cosmos selling out
preorders within minutes, but later shipments seemed to address that issue.

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/Deluxe11 - Blurr mold
https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/Deluxe1 - Skids and Arcee molds


CAPSULES

$25 for the Deluxes, $34 for the Voyagers, $56 for the Leader that I
didn't get.

Cybertron Universe Override: I think this one would have been better
served by a robot mode packaging, since the toy was clearly designed to be as
show-accurate as possible in robot mode. Vehicle mode ain't great. Still,
recommended.

Blurr: Original mold was mildly recommended, this retool goes with the
IDW looks for the character but sadly the new front wheels are "fake" and do
not roll. A lot of work, but nothing really fixed. Mildly recommended.

Diaclone Universe Burn Out: Original mold was recommended. They don't
change much here, but it looks good and nothing gets messed up. I'm not sure
I'd want a third version if then end up releasing the Crosscut deco, but this
one is still at the low end of recommended even if you have Skids.

Autobot Cosmos: Well, you really can't match both modes to animation
model without Masterpiece-level panel madness, but this does a pretty good
job with the robot mode and a somewhat goofy vehicle mode. Recommended, but
not worth scalper prices.

G2 Universe Road Rocket: Original mold was to be Avoided, but nostalgia
got me on the hook to give this one a chance. The mold isn't really fixed,
but there's some slight aesthetic improvements, and if you have any G2
nostalgia this isn't a complete waste of money. I'd say it's otherwise only
a mild avoid, it makes a better Road Rocket than it did Arcee.


RANTS

So, the Speedia 500 is the big Walmart exclusive this year, since
there's no Netflix show to accompany Legacy. While at first glance it seems
kinda arbitrary, some of the seemingly random characters do show up in the
Wreckers: Tread & Circuits comic, including Burn Out, Road Rocket, Clampdown,
and Road Hauler (as just Hauler) on top of the Obviously Belongs There
character Override. (Knock Out is also important to the comic, but he's in
the regular Legacy wave 2.) Really, the only ones who don't have connections
to the Speedia 500 in the recent comic are Nemesis Prime (who I guess had to
go somewhere as an exclusive) and Cosmos (who at least gets a little flag so
he can be handwaved as the race announcer).
The boxes all have characters in vehicle mode with open windows, and
none of them have QR codes. I scraped the Pulse site for the info below,
plus some info from the Hasbro livestream that introduced the line.

Theme: The race is on! Bots from across the multiverse have gathered on
Velocitron to participate in the Speedia 500, a planet-wide race to determine
its next leader.

Override: Override is the returning champion and is ready to defend her
title as leader of Velocitron.

Blurr: The fastest bot on Cybertron has entered the Speedia 500. Blurr
is racing to become the next leader of Velocitron.

Burn Out: He may not be the fastest, but Burn Out is determined to win
the Speedia 500. [Note: this is supposed to be the same character from Tread
and Circuits, and was announced as female on a Hasbro livestream.]

Cosmos: Racers, start your engines! Cosmos is the announcer for the
Speedia 500, ready to mark the winner with a wave of the checkered flag.

Road Rocket: Road Rocket plans on pushing the limit in the Speedia 500,
eager to cross the finish line as champion. [The same livestream confirmed
that this Road Rocket is also female.]

I suppose I should also add in the info for the ones I'm not reviewing,
for completeness's sake.

Clampdown: Clampdown knows the Speedia 500 is happening, but that
doesn’t mean bots can get away with speeding. He sits on the roadside,
waiting to pull over bots racing above safe speed limits. [Yeah, he's
engaged in election interference here. Whattamaroon.]

Road Hauler: Road Hauler has his towline at the ready to haul away
wrecked racers.

Scourge: For Scourge, the path to victory is through sheer power and
brute strength. After winning the Speedia 500, he will claim the planet in
the name of the Decepticons and rule with an iron fist. [In Tread &
Circuits, there technically were no Decepticons, just Mayhem and Ascenticons,
plus a lot of unaffiliated Velocitronians who would eventually go Decepticon
if the license hadn't been pulled.]


Packaging: Regardless of size class, these are predominantly blue with
some violet and the old Speed Planet Key symbol from the Cybertron cartoon.
Deluxes ns Voyagers are hang-tab boxes wider than they are tall with the toys
in vehicle mode and visible through open windows, while Scourge is packaged
in a closed non-hanging box as one might expect from a Leader. Deluxe boxes
are 7" (18cm) wide, 5" (12.5cm) tall in front, 7" (18cm) tall in back, and
2.5" (6.5cm) deep. Voyager boxes are 9" (22.5cm) wide, 6" (15cm) tall in
front, and 9" (22.5cm) tall in back. I did not measure Scourge in the store,
but it was comparable to Legacy Leader boxes, just landscape instead of
portrait, and a simple rectangular box. The inner trays are various shades
of mostly bright blue with speed lines and other "go fast" symbol stuff.
The Speed Planet icon has also been used as a non-verbal SPD attribute
symbol lately. It's a sideways lightning bolt piercing a sort of broken
crescent moon shape.
For the size classes I did buy, the hang tabs have Legacy-style faux
paintings of the vehicle mode on the left end, traveling to the right and
towards the viewer on a background of blue and purple speed lines and boost
chevrons, with the "VELOCITRON SPEEDIA 500 COLLECTION" in faux chrome letters
in the lower right of the tab. The box top has a render of the vehicle mode
on the right side, with the Legacy logo and a white Speed Planet icon on the
left. The box front has a faux-painted robot mode on the left of the window,
the collection name above the window, a light blue Speed Planet icon in the
upper right, the Legacy logo in the lower left, the character name in the
lower right (and yes, the names include their univese if they're not G1), and
the Transformers logo along the right edge. The right sides of the boxes are
a closeup (waist up, usually) of the robot art from the front, while the
front art wraps around to the left side. The left side has the Speed Planet
icon in blue shades in the rear top corner, and VELOCITRON in Cybertronian
letters along the bad edge. The box bottom has a large white Speed Planet
icon, and the usual legalese. The back repeats the name and collection logo,
renders of both modes, the number of transformation steps, and more
legalese. There's plenty of room on the back for a QR code, they just
decided not to use those for exclusives, I guess.
They all have places behind or under the inner tray for sticking
accessories that might otherwise go wandering, although Override's gun is in
front anyway. Everything attached to the tray is tied on with undyed rattan
strings, sometimes with tape to keep them from coming untied in shipping.
Sometimes the strings aren't even tied, just twisted up and taped down.
Maybe always, but since I don't have the entire assortment I can't be sure.
The instructions are loose behind the inner tray, and use light blue as
the accent color. They do start with vehicle mode, rather than the usual
robot mode, which might explain why some of the retools have a different
number of steps this time...some collapsing or separating of steps when
starting at the other end.


AUTOBOT: CYBERTRON UNIVERSE OVERRIDE
Assortment: F5763
Altmode: Velocitronian Race Car
Transformation Difficulty: 19 steps
Previous Name Use: None (just "Override" was Cybertron)
Previous Mold Use: None

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Cybertron/Deluxe2 for the original toy
that this homages.

Packaging: Three strings on the vehicle mode, one on the weapon, all
twisted then taped rather than tied.
The package renders carefully pick camera angles that hide the fact that
there's big gaps on the sides of the vehicle mode. The renders for robot
mode don't quite match the toy, the heels are the wrong color and it looks
like they changed how the vehicle front end bits fold up in the backs of the
boots between render and actual toy.

Vehicle Mode: Well, this suffers in two ways...being faithful to the
original toy, and NOT being faithful to it. It's faithful in terms of stuff
like the top of her head sticking out the roof, or the weird fenders. On the
other hand, the sides have big gaps that the original toy didn't have,
because this version prioritizes robot mode. The canopy is proportionally
smaller than in Cybertron as well, to allow for a slightly more feminine
robot mode. It's also missing a lot of the gold that the original had,
notably the "headlights" (tops of the feet) and most of the weapon on back.
The headlights and the red bits on the weapon wings would be easy enough to
add, but the extensive gold on the weapon is a bit much.
5.75" (14.5cm) long in mostly red, white and black, with a few bits of
blue and gold. There's actually almost no opaque red plastic visible in this
mode, just a few hinges here and there. The canopy and "tachymer" tires are
clear red plastic. The fenders, front of the hood, robot head front, and the
barrels of the weapon (which can't deploy in this mode, so they're just
exhaust pipes or something) are white plastic. The back of the hood, the
headlight bits, and much of the rear core are made of matte black plastic.
Gold paint is used on the back border of the canopy and on the wheel
hubs. The front end of the hood is painted red with some blue accents, and
there's lots of red detailing on the fenders as well as the horns of the
robot head. The rather pointy tail lights are painted red, as are the tips
of the weapon barrels. The blue paint found on the hood is also used in the
triangle at the back of the canopy (robot sternum) and the robot forehead
crest. Because the sides of the vehicle are open to show the robot arms, you
can see more gold paint there.
While the front and back can get a little out of alighment, when they're
all on the same plane it rolls well. There's a 5mm socket on either front
fender behind the wheels, but they're angled downwards and really not that
useful in this mode. There's a single off-center hexagonal 5mm socket on top
of the weapon in back, and if you remove the weapon there's another 5mm
socket that might work for some trailers...appropriate since she was Nitro
Convoy in the Japanese cut (and she was a he). The Laser Optimus/Scourge
trailer fits perfectly here, so it was probably an intentional Undocumented
Feature. While the weapon can't deploy its barrels all the way in this mode,
the 3mm studs on the tips can be used for exhaust flares. There's a 3mm
socket on the underside between the front wheels, a little too far forwards
for a flight base.
Since the weapon can't do much in this mode, I'll cover its details in
robot mode.

http://www.dvandom.com/images/NitroConvoy.JPG shows the trailer pulling
mode. I didn't put Override's weapon on the trailer, but there's plenty of
places it could have gone.

Transformation: The weapon can be left on during transformation, it just
becomes a backpack. Start by splitting the front end, and swing the two
halves down via hinges in the shins to turn them into the boots, with a slot
on each knee joint snapping onto a tab inside the boot's kneecap. Flipping
up the toes and then fold the hood parts around to close part of the back.
They do not fold as seen in the renders, as noted above, they really just
cover enough to block the range of ankle motion. The arms rotate out from
under the rear half, with the rear wheels turning to the inside of the torso.
Remember where the fists were positioned to hold onto pegs inside the spine,
you'll need them back in those positions when transforming back to vehicle
mode.
Getting the torso sides into place is a little tricky, because you have
to twist them a bit to get tabs into the backpack and the sides of the center
torso at the same time while collapsing some shafts inward. If anything is
in the wrong place, you need to pull the offending side (or even both sides)
back out and try again.
Note, the canopy is not locked down by any of these tabs, it's just hard
to get open due to joint friction and soft-ratcheting effects (flat-sided
rotating parts).
When going back to vehicle mode, there's tabs on the bottom corners of
the backpack that go into slots on the torso sides/rear fenders to keep them
in the right positions. It's not as troublesome as the robot torso, but
there's still some "do all these things simultaneously" parts to it.

Robot Mode: Mold-wise, this is dead-on show-accurate, other than
unavoidable things like hinges. Much better proportions than the original
toy. The colors aren't quite right, on top of the usual missing paint apps
issue the red paint on the boots is wrong. However, that seems to be a
concession to keeping the vehicle mode at least kind of close to the
original, since in the cartoon those stripes moved around between modes.
(Just because the models were pretty toyetic doesn't mean they didn't have
random bits move around or change size for aesthetics.)
6" (15cm) tall, which used to be normal for Deluxes...in fact, the
original Deluxe class Override was 5.75" tall at the head, and 6" if you
counted the backpack. (At least this one doesn't have such a tall backpack.)
Red, white, dark gray, and a fair amount of gold paint. No newly visible
clear red parts, although now it's obvious that they painted over the eyes,
so the lightpiping was pointless. Bright red plastic for the torso core,
biceps, thighs, and heel spurs. White plastic for the right and left torso
fronts, the pelvis, the upper halves of the upper arms, the front of the
head, the boots, and the barrels of the weapon. The dark gray seen on the
headlights section is also used for the shoulderpads, forearms, fists,
backplate, and most of the weapon.
The only new paints are on the head and arms. There's gold paint on the
face and on the ribbon-like details on the shoulderpads and forearms. The
front of the chinstrap and the entirety of the helmet horns are painted gloss
red, with metallic blue eyes (which appear to have been painted over gold, so
there's two layers of paints blocking the lightpiping). The entire top of
the sternum (back of the canopy) is also painted gold, something that wasn't
totally obvious in vehicle mode with the robot face pressed up against it.
The neck joint is a ball and socket that can only really turn, no other
range of motion. And either it's got deliberate flat spots for pseudo-
ratcheting effects, or there's some serious mold flash in there (the two
parts of the head are glued/fused together, so I can't just unscrew it to
check). The waist is a smooth swivel, but the backpack keeps it from turning
more than about 15 degrees either way. The shoulderpads swivel, and there's
pinned lifting hinges inside them. Standard snap-in bicep swivels, hinge
elbows, swivel wrists. The hips are pinned universal joints, the knees are
hinges. The ankles are hinges both directions, but can't move very far in
either. (The sideways hinges go just far enough to let the feet plant flat
when as far apart as the shoulders.)
5mm pegs fit in the fists, there's shallow hexagonal sockets on the
outer faces of the forearms, another under the tip of each toe, and those
hexagonal sockets in the front fenders are now more accessible, but they're
kinda shallow so things don't fit well there. (I wonder if their intended
purpose is for Fire Blasts in vehicle mode, for that rocket assisted jumping
kind of thing.) The 3mm socket in the back of the pelvis is almost blocked
by the backpack, if you want to put the robot on an action base you're better
off using the "trailer hitch" socket on the back.
The weapon is the biggest departure from the original, and not just
because of the lack of gold paint. For obvious reasons (mainly "Generations
toys don't have spring gimmicks") the barrels do not pop out on their own,
you need to pull them out manually and then make sure they're pointed the
same direction. However...they molded a slot in the back that's a perfect
fit for Cyber Planet Keys. The key won't DO anything, but it can be put in
the slot and will stay there nicely. So, cute bit of retro compatibility
there. The main chunk is about 1.5" (4cm) long and 1.75" (4.5cm) wide with
the fins folded flat. Oddly, the instructions only ever show them folded
flat, even though they're on hinges. Anyway, with the barrels deployed, the
total length increases to a little over 3" (7.5cm) and the barrels are
thicker and more robust than those on the original toy. It's held by a 5mm
peg in the center of the underside of the main chunk, and as mentioned in
vehicle mode the barrel tips are 3mm studs. Note, if you want to bend the
elbow 90 degrees while the gun is in hand, you'll need to fold up the
inner-side fin, I suspect the fins were supposed to be folded up in robot
mode but the person making the instructions missed that.

Overall: Good robot mode, and if the vehicle mode ain't great, it's not
much worse than the original version. I do quite like the Cyber Planet Key
compatibility.


AUTOBOT: BLURR
Assortment: F5757
Altmode: Cybertronian Race Car
Transformation Difficulty: 15 steps (original was 18, oddly)
Previous Name Use: G1, Gen, Gen:Tr, Arm, Cybertron, TFA, RB, Studio
Previous Mold Use: Studio

Okay, I already have two versions of this mold, and kinda impulse-bought
this one, but hey, maybe the retooling fixed the problems I had with the
original and the Shattered Glass version? (Spoiler: no, not really.)

Packaging: Two strings tied around the vehicle mode, gun and oil can
wrapped up in tissue and taped on the underside of the inner tray. The seat
of the driver's compartment is folded down, which was probably a goof on
someone's part since the box render shows it up.

Color Swaps: Not a simple swap. The clear chestplate bit is clear light
blue plastic. A sort of dull blue-gray plastic is used for the boots (other
than feet), forearms, torso sides, shoulder thruster bit, and the hinge
holding the backpack bit. Everything else is light blue plastic, a little
lighter than the light blue in the '86 Blurr.

Paint Apps: A good match for the blue-gray plastic is used to paint the
majority of the forearm fenders. A very light gray is used on the non-window
parts of the chest, the front of the pelvis/waist, the shins, the heels, and
the outer face of the backpack/hood. The fake wheels on the new front
fenders are gloss black, the face is gloss very light blue, and the eyes are
metallic blue. Some vent details on the backs of the boots are painted
gunmetal. A red Autobot symbol is printed inside the windowed cockpit.

Mold Changes: The most obvious one in-package is that the front fenders
have been replaced with ones that contain non-rolling wheels. Mind you, even
if they could roll, they don't even come CLOSE to touching the tabletop.
These aren't the only changes to the mold, though, which tries to get as
close as it can to the IDW version of Blurr (as seen in Tread & Circuits, but
also based at least somewhat on the Lost Light design).
Basically, there's almost more new parts than old. New parts are the
head, upper arms, forearm fender pads (but they didn't fix the crappy tabbing
so the fenders still depend purely on joint friction), backpack/car hood, and
pelvis. Everything in the legs down is unchanged.

Other Notes: So, the vehicle mode looks good from above, but not even a
little right from the sides. Still, they tried, and certainly accomplished
more than I expected in terms of retooling the robot mode.

Overall: I really hadn't expected any more IDW-verse versions, even ones
from the aborted reboot (and this Blurr looks like the Lost Light one), so
this was a nice surprise. And at least the hinges are a little tighter on
the forearms of this one, so the bad design element is less of a problem.


AUTOBOT: DIACLONE UNIVERSE BURN OUT
Assortment: F5758
Altmode: Turbo Car
Transformation Difficulty: 15 steps
Previous Name Use: None
Previous Mold Use: Legacy

Technically, the Diaclone vehicles were piloted, not self-aware, but
this is a color scheme used in Diaclone, so I *suppose*. (An upcoming
Masterpiece Burn Out will come with a "ghost pilot" redecoed from a Carly
figure, so kinda piloted?) Burn Out was created for BotCon 2015's exclusives
(same place as Lift-Ticket), as an homage to the black Diaclone Honda City
Turbo.

Packaging: Three tied strings hold the vehicle mode into the tray, the
weapons are in the usual tissue paper rolled up and taped under the tray.

Color Swaps: Blue becomes black, black becomes dark gray, while the
clear blue and the red plastics stay the same (allowing for batch
variations). And yes, the bumper is still red plastic painted all over the
outside. It makes me wonder if the sprue choice was made in anticipation of
Crosscut?

Paint Apps: There's gloss black paint on the non-window parts of the
doors and roof. The red and silver stripes along the sides of vehicle mode
are the same as Skids has. Silver paint is used on the front grille,
covering the guns except for their pegs, the faceplate, the stripe along the
top of the helmet, and circles on the shoulder fronts. The centers of those
circles are painted red. The foglamps on the chest are also red, while the
taillights are red stripes with yellow stripes above and below (Skids did not
get paint on his taillights). The headlights and eyes are also yellow
(although the eyes could stand a thicker layer of it), the front bumper is
dark gunmetal, and there's a red-only Autobot symbol printed on the
hood/chest. Unlike Skids, the thighs are left unpainted.

Mold Changes: There's a new head, and it's basically the Crosscut head
(Crosscut being the previous go-to Skids new-head retool, going back to the
2002 E-Hobby line that also gave us Road Rage). Otherwise, basically the
same mold as Legacy Skids.

Other Notes: I'd been mistransforming Skids with his shoulders
backwards, since the correct fronts are unpainted. But Burn Out's shoulders
make it clearer that they need to be front-facing. I think I'll keep Skids
mistransformed to create a little more visual difference between the two.
It is nice to have a female character who isn't given human curves, even
if they did screw up on her pronouns in the only bit of lore accessible to
regular buyers.

Overall: Yeah, black redecos are a bit old hat, but at least she gets a
proper name and not a DK designation like Guard. To the extent the mold has
minor flaws, this doesn't fix 'em, but nothing new gets broken either. Worth
picking up.


AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT COSMOS
Assortment: F5759
Altmode: UFO
Transformation Difficulty: 21 steps
Previous Name Use: Universe, Gen:T30 (G1 was just "Cosmos").
Previous Mold Use: None

Packaging: Two criss-crossing strings hold the saucer mode into the
tray, while the flag and the gun are wrapped up in grayish tissue paper and
secured with tape on the underside of the inner card. The strings are tied
rather than twisted and taped.
In the box so you see him top-down rather than at more of a side-on
angle like the rest, partly because of issues of fitting any other way, but
probably also so you can't see how awkwardly they compromised the vehicle
mode to get a cartoon-accurate robot mode.
The box art shows him with just the pistol, the flag may have been
planned from the start or a later add-on. The instructions do show the flag,
so if it was added later, it was still pretty early in the process.

Vehicle Mode: It looks like the T30 Cosmos is carrying a crockpot. As
with Override, they prioritized animation accuracy of the robot mode, so the
top tier of the saucer is much taller than on the original toy (the G1
cartoon got the vehicle mode pretty close to the toy, but faked it hard on
robot mode). Lots of "fake" bits to try to at least get close to the
animation model of vehicle mode despite a different transformation, such as a
little red button on top that is not actually the top of the head, or engine
thrusters on the sides that end up hidden on the heels and replaced by
different thrusters on the robot hands. (And yes, if you want the Sunbow
robot mode, it's kinda hard to NOT have a way-too-tall top deck, which is why
I prefer the aesthetics of T30 where they just made their own look.)
A little under 3.5" (8.5cm) in diameter and 2.25" (5.5cm) tall, mostly
olive drab and darker forest green, with some bits of silver, blue, and red.
Other than some exposed hinges (including a yellow bit in back which is not
really visible in either mode, just during transformation), all the plastic
in this mode is olive drab. The leading edge and sides have a 1.5cm thick
band of forest green, with a silver rectangle at the very front of the disk
that's a bit taller than the band. The thruster tubes at the back are also
forest green, as is a ring around the top of the "crockpot" part. The front
of the crockpot is molded and painted as the robot's chest, silver down the
center in a tapering trapezoid, medium gloss blue to either side, light blue
blocks at the top of each blue part and silver blocks below them. The
not-head button on top is painted gloss red, and a red Autobot symbol is
printed on what will become the sternum.
No articulation in this mode, and a bit of collapsed-in shaft in the
back keeps the top from fully flipping over (so you need to make sure you
transform the head while that shaft is pulled out). There's a collared 5mm
socket at the edge of the disk on either side, another 5mm socket on a yellow
plastic hinge piece at the back of the crockpot, and a 3mm socket just above
that. There's no standard connectors on the underside. There's little
blaster barrels molded along the front edge of the disk, one on each side,
which end in 3mm studs.
The gun and flag are both also made of olive drab plastic, but the flag
is almost entirely covered in gloss white paint with a black checker pattern
on one side (so the other side can be for a surrender flag). Unfortunately,
the paint is on the peg used to attach it to the gun, so the fit is REALLY
tight. The gun has a stock, so it looks more like a small rifle than a
pistol, and it is a little more than 1.75" (4.5cm) long. The 5mm peg grip is
near the back end, most of the barrel is also 5mm in diameter with a 3mm stud
at the end, and there's a 5mm hole through the body of the gun just above the
grip, so that the flag can peg into the side. The flag itself is 18mm tall
and (not counting the peg) 25mm (1") wide, molded in a single wave. One side
has a 4 by 6 checker pattern printed in black over the white paint. The
paint on the peg has already rubbed off significantly on my copy. When the
flag is pegged into the side, the barrel becomes the flagstick. In vehicle
mode, it can either store on the back of the crockpot, or in one of the side
sockets. There's a couple of slots on either side of the barrel that look
like they're meant to go onto tabs, but I couldn't find anywhere in either
mode where they could connect, so it's probably just for reducing the volume
to surface area ratio.
One stability note, a flap in the back of the disk part that needs to
fold down for transformation is just snapped into place, and the piece it is
snapped into tends to get flexed easily, leading to the flap just sort of
falling out. There's very shallow tabs on either side of the bracket that
are supposed to keep it in place, but at least on mine they don't even touch
the flap, much less hold it.
While it doesn't have wheels, it does have tabs on the underside that
act as little legs and let it look like it's hovering a little off the
surface of the table.

Transformation: Pull the sides out a bit, then lift the yellow clips
revealed by this. The front quarter of the disk is the robot feet, and the
legs swing down while the pelvis swings forwards and snaps into position.
That's the easy part. The bits with the gun barrels from the front are
hinged and swing around to become the heels, with somewhat excessive force
required to snap them into position in back. The rest of the disk shell
pulls back via a shaft that telescopes out, and good luck managing that
without popping the "trunk" panel off. The shaft rotates 180 degrees and the
trunk panel folds in and a slot in it goes over a tab on the back. Next, the
shoulder roots swing down and snap into place on the handles of the crockpot,
and from there it's just flipping out the hands and rotating the top to bring
out the robot head (which can be done at any time after the back shaft is
pulled out).

Robot Mode: Well, they didn't QUITE get the proportions from G1's
animation model, because the legs had to be long enough to span the disk of
the saucer mode. So he isn't quite as squat as he "should" be, but otherwise
it's pretty close. Other than the forearms, there's not a lot of hollows,
which is nice. There's a lot of yellow in this mode, some of it plastic and
some of it paint.
4.75" (12cm) tall in a decent balance of dull greens and bright yellows.
There's actually two different yellow plastics, but the difference is only
apparent under the right lighting conditions (fluorescent seems the best for
telling), with a slightly lighter yellow used for the shoulder clips, elbow
joints, parts of the pelvis, the panel hidden inside the backpack, and the
telescoping shaft. The slightly more golden yellow plastic forms the rest of
the pelvis, the hip flaps (I think), the thighs, shins, and ankle joints.
The head is definitely one of the two kinds of yellow plastic, but almost
entirely painted over so I can't really tell which color it is underneath.
Oddly, the faceplate is painted yellow over red paint over yellow
plastic. The head seems to have been dipped in gloss red paint and then the
faceplate painted over that, plus medium gloss blue eyes. The only other
paint new to this mode is yellow on the fronts of the shoulders and
forearms.
The neck is a restricted ball joint, the waist is a smooth swivel. The
shoulders are swivels where they connect to the torso (well, the the clip
that connects to the torso), with pinned hinges at the top edges of the
rotating cores. The elbows have swivels at the top of the joint piece and
hinges at the bottom, and the fists swing inward on transformation hinges.
Pinned universal joint hips with pinned hinge flaps hanging from the "belt"
area that can get out of the way. Mid-thigh swivels, 90 degree hinge knees,
and sideways ankle hinges. (There's transformation hinges that would allow
the toes to point, but the heels lock that joint in place.
The pinned shoulder lift-up joint in the right arm of mine (and at least
one other person's) is super loose, and washing did not help. I was able to
get some topcoat sealant into the joint and make it about as semi-loose as
the left shoulder, though.
5mm socket fists, one 5mm socket in the small of the back (on the
telescoping bit), one on each outer boot face, and under the center of each
ankle joint piece. The intentional 3mm socket on the back remains
accessible, and the snap-in hinges on the backpack provide an accidental 3mm
socket on either side if you happen to have any 3mm peg guns you want to
mount on the backpack.

Overall: Well, the vehicle mode looks pretty dumb, but if you want
something that looks right in both modes you probably need a Masterpiece with
five thousand folding panels. I still prefer the T30 version (I even still
have one out on display), but for a G1-accurate toy this is pretty good.
Fortunately the shortpacking problem got less bad and I didn't have to
overpay for this, though.


AUTOBOT: G2 Universe Road Rocket
Assortment: F5760
Altmode: Motorcycle
Transformation Difficulty: 21 steps (original was 20)
Previous Name Use: None (G2 was just "Road Rocket")
Previous Mold Use: Legacy

Okay, so Arcee was pretty bad. And the original Road Rocket suffered
from thighs that were way too short, but I still have fond memories of it, so
I decided that I'd give the mold another shot here, rather than on the more
expensive Flamewar. I also put this as the last review of the set, so as to
not risk souring any of the others if this turned out to be very bad too.
https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/G2/LaserCycles is my review of the original
Road Rocket (and Road Pig, who also appeared in the Tread & Circuits comic).
I'm of two minds about making Road Rocket female. On the one hand,
gender balance is still pretty bad outside of BotBots, so the more the
better. On the other, "feminine proportions == female robot" is problematic
as well, especially since the new one is not really any more feminine than
the G2 toy was, and the original Road Rocket was gendered as male on his bio
note trading card thing.

Packaging: Two strings tied around the motorcycle mode and nothing seems
to have fallen off, that's a good first sign. A third string AND a rubber
band hold the front end together, so I guess they didn't have THAT much faith
in the mold. Upon being removed, some bits still needed to be massaged into
the right positions, but at least they weren't missing! The pegged-together
Energon weapons are in the usual tissue paper taped under the inner tray.
She has the G2 Autobot symbol on her packaging instead of the standard
one.

Color Swaps: Black stays black, gray becomes very dark gray, blue
becomes red (except for the head, but that's a new piece), and the clear blue
gets a little lighter.

Paint Apps: In robot mode there's a medium metallic blue on the
faceplate, the elbow spikes (which become part of the seat), and the fronts
of the boots including the entirety of the knee spikes. This last bit is a
reference to G2 Road Rocket's blue seat in vehicle mode, which became the
boot fronts. In this toy, they just end up on the underside. The forearm
blue is actually wrong for the G2 vehicle mode, oops. The collar area is
gloss black with a red G2 Autobot symbol, while matte black is used for the
abdomen front. The ninja star pattern molded into the Energon weapon is
painted gloss black.
In vehicle mode, the aerodynamic cowling is mostly painted red, with
black around the headlights and on the side mirrors. The front wheel has
silver brake pads, gunmetal turbine-fan spokes, and red "whitewall" stripes.
The rear wheel is the same but the brakepad is also gunmetal. The blue from
the forearms I guess is as good as they could manage, since much of the seat
is really just the black plastic upper arms.

Mold Changes: Just a new head, which has a black front and a clear light
blue back for lightpiping, modeled after the original Road Rocket head (which
is in turn vaguely ninja-hood-ish).

Other Notes: Well, the first time I transformed it to robot mode the
front end cowling fell off, so they didn't even address that issue. And the
right bicep joint popped apart repeatedly, probably a tiny bit of flash
inside or something. I knew to hold the spine bit so it wouldn't come apart,
but it was clearly prone to doing so. In short...nope, none of the problems
with the mold were fixed.
The extra transformation step is attaching the opened up front wheel
"weapon" to the socket behind the head, giving the robot mode something like
the Motoroid (Bubblegum Crisis) look that the G2 toy had. And this is
actually documented, to my surprise (I figured it out on my own, but decided
to look at the instructions before declaring it an Undocumented Feature).
That little bit does help some, and make me feel I didn't completely waste my
money on another copy of a flawed mold. That, and while it made for a
somewhat chunky and short-looking version of Prime Arcee, it's a big
improvement on G2 Road Rocket's proportions. Note, the socket is present on
Arcee too, if you want to put her front wheel to better aesthetic use than
the choice of "stupid weapon" or "sticking out the back."

Overall: Still a pretty bad mold, but if you have any G2 nostalgia
there's just enough good in there to make it worth picking up, assuming your
budget isn't tight.


Dave Van Domelen, still has loads of retools to review thanks to the
Wreckers collection.