Phil's Universe Sideswipe et al Review

That's a brilliant idea about Tigertrack! I'm going to do that.

What was the error?

Since I've already bounced this thread it seems an aproriate place to put the revised Sunstreaker/Sideswipe et al review:

Sunstreaker

One of the things Hasbro has looked for when creating the 2nd series of Classics is toys that can easily be repainted into others. Hasbro: Are you regretting that Botcon set slightly now ? Prowl obviously will become Blue/Silverstreak and Smokescreen. Here they've gone for a mould that can be reused with minimal tweaking to be both Sunstreaker and his brother Sideswipe. But was it a good idea to go for an original in yellow, copy in red combination after doing it in Classics 1 with Bumblebee and Cliffjumper ?

Apart from the colour, which is yellow on Sunstreaker, the main distinguishing feature between the Lamborghini brothers in car mode is Sunstreaker's rear mounted engine/coolant intake/radiator whatever. Here it appears as an add on piece which clips into place on the roof. To my mind the intakes could be much bigger, and the black engine piece smaller. The air intakes are also made of very grey plastic - I suspect you'll see them chromed on the Japanese version. If it gets left off Sideswipe you can at least swap them over to pretend that Sideswipe has it. Sunstreaker looks fine without it too which is in turn encouraging for Sideswipe. Just looking at the car I see some other slots on the roof for mounting the engine in robot mode but maybe Hasbro's thinking ahead as well and will do Fire Chief (Red Alert) and Police Car versions of this mould. Diaclone has both LP-500s and Super Tuning police cars. A potential Botcon exclusive for next year ?

The car itself resembles a Lamborghini without infringing their copyright - the spoiler, sloped vented back. Since I moaned about Prowl's wheels I'll praise these very authentic ones - multi spoked with a silver hubcap.

Sunstreaker's gun forms the exhaust pipe - the twin pipes sticking out the back, and the square recess on the gun fitting over the square block on the underside of the car at the back - you may need to push the rear halves of the car together to make it fit.

TF: Pop the doors out to the sides slightly. Good luck - mine took some work. Fold the halves of the rear of the car out to the sides and fold the rear of the car down to form the lower legs (1) Turn out so the rear of the car and the wheel is facing forward. Fold the feet down. Pull the front of the car forward and fold the arms out. Fold the bonnet down onto the back (2) Rotate the windscreen and the roof to autoTF the head out - the horns on the head pop out automatically. Position the arms and attach gun & backpack. Hmmm - those holes on the roof haven't been used at all (3)

(1) Want a peak at how they'll make Sideswipe different ? Well if you position the legs so that the rear of the car and the wheels are facing to the outside and then put the feet backwards so they're heel spurs instead. Position the robot so the sloped vents on the back of the car are facing forward.

(2) Then fold the front of the car down as the chest. Turn the head round when it pops up. The jetpack then gets mounted on the roof slots. ****** ****, that's clever. 2 Robot forms from one vehicle. All you need do is swap the fists over and that's easily done, since they're of the rotating sort with the joint in the wrist open at the bottom. In fact - looking at the legs I reckon that if you had each knee downwards on the other leg the TF would still work.

(3) I suspect the holes are for the backpack to plug into when the car is Sideswipe and that Sideswipe may have the engine as well.

Articulation: Ball jointed ankle on an arm connecting it to the leg. Leg folds in to the sides beneath the knee - I suspect this is the knee joint on the Sideswipe version. Knee, swivel above the knee, ball jointed hip, waist. shoulders that sort of shrug forward - the ball joint at the shoulder is mounted on an arm that rotates at the body, bicep, dual jointed elbow that allows for the lower arm to be brought up alongside the upper arm, rotational joint at the wrists and the neck.

Robot mode is good - captures the essential features of G1 Sunstreaker - he head and the chest. We've also got the yellow lower legs and yellow shoulders with red stripes on to simulate the misplaced stickers on the original version. Beyond that some liberty has been taken - after all Sunstreaker was one of the more straight robot modes with no obvious knees, huge feet. I'd like the lower arms to be black ideally instead of grey but it's a good effort. His gun can be hand held by it's 5mm handle or have the base inserted into the smaller peg holes on either shoulder. The engine is supposed to wrap round the gun to bulk it up, but that's never worked too well on my one, or indeed any later of the toy that I have.

To summarise which parts are which colour:

Yellow - car bodywork and robot shoulders
Grey - air intakes, lower robot arms, upper legs, gun and robot torso structure
Dark smoked clear - windscreen & roof Black - engine block, hands, head, lower part of knees including the caps, feet & outer hip joint, inner shoulders, front wheel supports, upper arms, ankles, elbows, inner hip joint & upper part of the knee joint. Some of these black parts may not be on the same sprue as the others as subsequent repaints now suggest.

Overall: Decent car. Good robot. But *HUGE* marks for squeezing a 2nd robot mode in there with the minimum of tweaking. This is a design triumph. And for what it's worth I think the suspected Sideswipe version looks better in robot mode.

Sunstreaker was a wave 1 Universe 2008 toy sold alongside Prowl and Tankor (Octane). He was sold as Henkei toy C-07 where his air intakes, gun and rear spoiler were chromed silver.

Sideswipe

Sideswipe is a repaint of Sunstreaker, but with some remoulding chucked in.

Car mode is nearly identical - apart from the obvious change from yellow to red. There's some additional black detailing painted on the sides, and the rear panel is also now painted black. The number plate reads "SWIPE". The engine is still included, but the air intakes are now painted silver.

TF is identical to Sunstreaker with an extra step to turn the waist round so the car's bonnet faces forward. In an amusing Hasbro mistake the instructions still show the Sunstreaker TF with Sunstreaker head and body. Oh dear.

In car mode all the yellow pieces continue to be red, the grey is now all white - including the gun, although a spray of black paint is added here, as are the black pieces of upper arm, ankle (between the red of the car and black of the foot) and some of the internal mechanism for raising the head. The head's horns are a little pronounced, and the central raised area and crest a little small for my liking. He has clear blue lightpiped eyes and a silver face. Articulation is identical. The gun can easily be mounted on the small peg hole on the shoulder in this mode, while the engine is either used as a Jetpack or can wrap around the gun to bulk it out.

Overall: Decent repaint, didn't drop the ball there. Still not sure about the wheels on the front of the legs, and the head misses the mark a tinsy bit. Worth getting.

Sideswipe was a Wave 3 Generations 2008 toy sold alongside Silverstreak, a repaint of Prowl and Ironhide. He was sold in Japan as Henkei toy C-09 which omitted the engine block but chromed the gun and rear spoiler.

Henkei Red Alert

Red Alert is of course a straight repaint of Sideswipe who in turn is a minor remould of Sunstreaker. Sideswipe’s red is gone from the car body replaced with white on which is laid G1 style Red Alert stripes and details. As per the Henkei Sideswipe the engine from Sunstreaker is missing. We gain a lightbar on top of the car which screwed into the roof. It's the same design as that found on Henkei Ratchet & Prowl, which in turn is different from that used on the western versions of the same toys. The lightbar has the central section painted white. Windows are cast in clear blue plastic and the spoiler & exhaust are chromed.

TF as per Sideswipe, but this is the first version of the mould I’ve owned where the shoulder hasn’t been knackered straight out the packaging. The arms are all white – including the shoulders, which are red on Sideswipe as are the upper legs (red on G1 Red Alert) Following the cartoon’s lead Red Alert’s head is painted red, with a clear blue lightpipe for eyes. The exhaust becomes the gun/missile launcher as before and here we find a red chromed tip to simulate G1 Red Alert’s red missiles.

Lovely repaint, couldn’t ask for better.

Red Alert is exclusive to the Henkei range numbered C-20. No Universe version was released of Red Alert, leading to the Henkei version commanding a considerable premium. St the time I wrote that:

but I wouldn't be surprised to see it in Wave 1 of the next classics relaunch.

Well you'll never guess what happened.....

Botcon 2010 Breakdown

Breakdown takes the Sideswipe version of the mould, repaints it as Generation 2 Breakdown, a previous Botcon exclusive in 1994 and itself a repaint of Stunticon Breakdown. Since Breakdown is also a Lamborghini this is a very acceptable reuse of the Generations toy.

The car's bodywork becomes a pale blue with all the previously grey parts being repainted in pink. A new head, resembling the old Scramble City connectors, is cast in the same pink plastic with a black stripe being painted on the bonnet with a Generation 2 Decepticon symbol set in it.

It's a hideous looking toy, but so was the original so it's done it's job.

Botcon 2010 Generation 2 Sideswipe

Botcon 2010 Sideswipe was the toy used at the customising class held at the Botcon 2010 convention.

The original Generation 2 Sideswipe was a repaint of 1984 Sideswipe consisting of a straight colour swap of the red and the black. Essentially that's what happened here too with the clear plastic becoming clear green.

A great looking figure and an obvious repaint it's hoped that some way can be found to get this figure to the masses rather than the select few at the customising class at the convention.

Transformers Collectors Club Punch & Counterpunch

When the Sunstreaker toy first came out several people commented it should be possible to produce a new version of Punch/Counterpunch. And sure enough, via the auspices of of the Transformers Collectors club, Punch/Counterpunch emerged as an exclusive in 2010.

The vehicle mode on the car follows the original by being cast in Dark Blue with all the other solid plastic now being black except for the elbows which are also now blue. A new head is included with a different face on each side.

Unfortunately this toy is afflicted by a major assembly error leading to the Sunstreaker chest not turning correctly in relation to the head. Fortunately this can be corrected but a fairly major piece of Transformer toy disassembly is required - see here for details.

Generations Red Alert

Eighteen months after his Japanese Henkei release Red Alert finally emerged in the west, as a part of Generations Wave 3 with War For Cybertron Soundwave.

Red Alert has the same white body shell as his Henkei counterpart, albeit with an unchromed spoiler. The labelling is altered to read Fire Rescue rather than Fire Chief and he looses the shield on the sides. The V shaped western lightbar is used here as is the engine unit missing from the Japanese version. The windows on this version are a slightly smoke clear plastic.

The robot mode is also different from the Japanese version. `Most obviously the head is once again black, to match the original Red Alert. The shoulders, upper arms and elbows are ref plastic while the gun, lower arms, torso and upper legs are grey plastic. Hands, waist and knees are black as per other versions.

I'm torn. I think most of the Henkei toy looks better but prefer the black head from this one!

For a picture gallery see www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-feedback/313990-generations-red-alert.html.

Future Repaints

The Original 1984 Sideswipe has a rich vein of repaints that could be tapped into: Deepcover (Black with blue head) and Clamp Down (Police) are two former E-Hobby exclusives while Tigertrack was a mail away for a Magazine.

Sunstreaker meanwhile also has Red and Police Car Diaclone variants.

The problem is several of these are quite similar to existing toys: Red Sunstreaker is Sideswipe with the Sunstreaker head & Transformation while Tigertrack is Sunstreaker with the Sideswipe head & Transformation. Clampdown is very similar to Red Alert, especially in robot mode, but perhaps the use of a new straight lightbar here would help. I'd say make a 2-pack of Clampdown and Police Car Sunstreaker but you'd end up with 2 nearly identical vehicles but different robots. Hmmmm,might be a nice play on the old clones concept perhaps.

Of course a Stunticon Breakdown is always another possibility. Classics Mirage has already been repainted as Universe Dragstrip after all.....