Phil's Protectobot & Defensor Review

Protectobot Groove

Groove is a first for Transformers: he's a motorcycle. He's mainly white, with silver chromed sides and black plastic used to make the wheels, handlebars and seat. His windshield is white plastic dressed up with stickers. He has solid 5mm pegs sticking out of each side of the saddle bags. On these pegs can be mounted his twin vaporators which move up & down.

Transformation: Fold the saddle back 270 degrees, split in two down the middle and push to each side to form the feet. Stand with the underside facing you. Turn the windshield & front wheel round 180 degrees so the wheel is down the robot's back. Pull the head forwards and raise the arms. Pivot the vaporators to point forward and place his photon pistol into the side of his hand.

Groove's robot mode is pretty solid for a motorbike, even though his articulation is limited to just the shoulders. I love the side cannons on the feet, not all the Scramble City/Special Team combiner limbs can bring their vehicle weapons over to use in robot mode in this way.

Onto our "Which original Autobot toy is this Protectobot most like?" challenge. See Hotspot's review for details. Well we're a little stuck here as there's no original Autobot motorcycle. So I'll take my inspiration here from the name and say that Groove makes me think of Jazz. This has the advantage that both are white and as a bonus there's an unreleased Generation 2 Laser Cycle Jazz. So I'm comfortable with this small leap. Just wait till you see who I think Blades is!

Groove has the ability to become a limb for Defensor or any robot formed from Special Team/Scramble City components.

Arm Mode: Fold the front wheel back, fold the head right the way forward to form a connector under the vehicle. Fold the front wheel back. Plug a hand into the hole in the end of the saddle. Defensor's instructions show Groove without his cannons but I like to leave them on to give Defensor some wrist cannons.

Leg Mode: Fold the front wheel back and then swing through 180 degrees so the wheel is on the front of the saddle. Plug a foot into the hole at the rear of the saddle. Again Defensor's instructions picture Groove with the weapons removed but again I'd leave them on and have them pointing forward.

A decent first attempt at a motorcycle.

Groove was released in 1986 as Protectobot P2 and was also part of the Defensor giftset. He was released in Japan as Transformers toy C-74 and was also in the C-76 Guardian giftset. Groove's one re-release to date was as one of the gold carded European Classics in 1991.

Operation Combination Sparkride

Groove's sole released repaint was as Sparkride who was only sold as part of the Operation Combination's TFC-04 Guard City box set which also contains Fire Chief (Hotspot), Streetstar (Streetwise ), Fly-up (Blades ) & Safety (First Aid ). TFU is at the moment very deficient when it comes to Guard City and it's components. The best photos of this rare toy can be found in Maz's Guard City Article

Apart from the stickers, Sparkride seems to be identical to Groove.

Generation 2 Groove

Groove has an unreleased version as Generation 2 Protectobot P3 Groove. He is re-coloured in typical Generation 2 fashion (IE Horribly!) with the white becoming orange while the black of the saddle and handlebars becomes green with the wheels & weapons staying black.

Horrible. One of the worst G2 repaint colour versions. The red on the card art looks much better.

Future Repaints

If we're looking to repaint him as a different Autobot then why not take our inspiration from the nice looking Generation 2 Groove Card Art, make him red & black and call him Road Rocket. A Decepticon version would then be painted black as Road Pig.

Protectobot First Aid

First Aid is the ambulance member of the Protectobots. As befitting his vehicle mode he's mainly white with a red lightbar and blue painted or stickered windows. If we extend our "Protectobots are redone versions of original Autobots" analogy - see Hotspot's review for why - then First Aid is obviously Ratchet. Like Streetwise (and the Stunticon limbs) First Aid comes with a connector that plugs into a 5mm wide peg hole and has a round clip at the top which allows you to mount First Aid's Dual-Barrelled Decrystallizer Cannon on the top. I personally think that Hasbro hasn't quite got the design of this right. I'd have put another 5mm peg hole in the top of the connector and a 5mm peg on the base of the cannon allowing it to be used by Defensor as a handgun.

Transformation: Remove the cannon and mount. Fold the back of the vehicle back 180 degrees to form the legs. Stand with the underside facing forward. Fold the front of the ambulance back revealing the face. Pull the arms out to the sides and peg the photon pistol into the inside of the fist. Extend the legs.

Like all the other Protectobot limb robots, bar Streetwise, First Aid has his peg holes on the inside of the hand rather than the top. Indeed I had a First Aid gun floating around in my spares box for years before I realised what it was, the odd design making me think it was for a different toy (possibly a Headmaster junior head gun) or for a different toyline entirely! First Aid's robot mode reveals some red plastic upper legs and the typical Scramble City/Special Team square head. The chest is a slightly darker red which was first made of metal and then latterly as a plastic part. The same colour part and change is made to several of the other Protectobots including Hotspot making me think there's some gang moulding going on with these toys. First Aid's sole points of meaningful articulation are his shoulders, which turn, while his knees do bend but the lower legs are one piece and the hips don't move so that's useless for doing anything with! Like Streetwise and the Stunticons his vehicle mode weapon is useless in this mode which is a shame. A 5mm plug in the back of the folded back vehicle front would allow the cannon to be mounted pointing over his head as a medical laser.

First Aid also serves as a limb for Defensor.

Leg mode: From vehicle mode fold the front of the ambulance back. Attach a foot to the rear of the vehicle and attach to the knee of Defensor. Fold the front of the vehicle back.

Arm Mode: From vehicle mode fold the front of the ambulance back and fold the head under the vehicle. Flip the back half of the vehicle around 180 degrees. Peg a fist into the hole at the bottom of the wrist. Extend the arm. Attach.

I don't like the look of this arm mode: the exposed outer part of the lower arm and the folded back vehicle front sticking out to the sides annoy me. So here's my version: Fold back the front of the ambulance, fold the head down and fold the front of the ambulance back into place. Attach hand to the hold in the back of the ambulance meant for the cannon. Attach. Yes it's a shorter arm, but it looks much better to my eye *and* it gives Defensor some elbow articulation with the forearm being able to fold in.

First Aid was sold as Protectobot P4 and as part of the Defensor giftset. In Japan he was released as Transformers toy C-75 and was part of the C-76 Guardian giftset. First Aid has had one re-issue as part of the gold carded European Classics line in 1991.

Operation Combination Safety

First Aid's only released repaint is as Safety who was only sold as part of the Operation Combination's TFC-04 Guard City box set which also contains Fire Chief (Hotspot), Streetstar (Streetwise ), Sparkride (Groove ) & Fly-up (Blades ). TFU is at the moment very deficent when it comes to Guard City and it's components. The best photos of this rare toy can be found in Maz's Guard City Article.

Safety is very similar to First Aid with a whiter white and the chest plate now becoming orange plastic as per Fly-up (Blades and Fire Chief (Hotspot).

Generation 2 First Aid

First Aid has a famous unreleased repaint: His Generation 2 version, which was numbered P2. He's got a whiter vehicle mode, teal chest and yellowish orange in place of the red plastic.

Future Repaints

If a future Ratchet version came out not a lot needs to be done to it. But if they somehow made another Autobot combiner out of the toy why not remove the lightbar and repaint the white as red or black for him to serve as Ironhide.

As for a Decepticon version...... how about calling him Chaser (as in Ambulance Chaser) and painting him black or a dark blue as if he was wearing a suit like a lawyer?

Defensor

Defensor is a combined robot formed from the five Protectobots:

P1: Streetwise
P2: Groove
P3: Blades
P4: First Aid
P5: Hot Spot

These were available separately or as part of the Defensor giftset. For a long time I just had a Hotspot. But I decided at the start of 2009 to turn him into Defensor. It just took a while.

I hear the word has got about that I don't like Scramble City/Special Team combiners. That's just not true. I don't like The Aerialbots/Superion and The Stunticons/Menasor. I don't like either design, as I'll outline later. I also believe that as the first combiner on each side in this series they'd be better being more representative of each side IE Autobot Cars and Decepticon Jets. I would one day like to see them repainted in such a manner and renamed something like this:

Aerialbots->Aircons:

Air-Raid becomes Skywarp
Skydive becomes Ramjet
Fireflight becomes Thrust
Slingshot becomes Thundercracker
Silverbolt becomes Starscream

Stunticons->Stuntbots:

Deadend becomes Windcharger
Breakdown becomes Sunstreaker
Wildrider becomes Wheeljack
Drag Strip becomes Mirage
Motormaster becomes Huffer

There, I've lost half of my regular readers already having re-aired my popular theory here. Don't worry, there's another coming right up that'll probably sort out the rest of you.

The Combaticons/Bruticus and Protectobots/Defensor are, I feel, much more representative of the general themes for the two opposing Transformers factions giving the Autobots rescue vehicles and the Decepticons more aggressive military vehicles. Similarly in 1987 the Technobots/Computron and Terrorcons/Abominus and in the following year the Seacons/Piranacon follow the new Autobot Machines vs Decepticon Animals theme established by the Headmasters, while the Targetmasters (in 1987 at least) follow the established Autobot Cars vs Decepticon Planes pattern. The Good Machines vs Bad Animals theme is later reversed in Beast Wars II (with Good Cybertron Beasts and Evil Destron Machines) and Beast Machines (with Good Maximals vs Evil Vehicons) and then brought back at the start of Car Robots/Robots in Disguise (when the Cybertron/Autobot vehicles fight the beasts of the Destronger/Predacons).

As we've explored in the individual reviews the Protectobots can be seen, or could quite easily be redone, as original 1984 Autobots cars remade:

Streetwise becomes Prowl
Groove becomes Jazz
Blades becomes Sideswipe
First Aid becomes Ratchet
Hot Spot becomes Optimus Prime. Or at least he does when the blue is *all* repainted as red.

I'd call the repainted combined form something like Omega Prime or Autobot Prime.

Told you. That's the rest of my readers gone On my own now here. So having likened my swapped Stunt and Aerial team and my existing Protectobot team to earlier Transformers who does that makes the Combaticons? Well Onslaught's head resembles Soundwave's, and that then gets you thinking cassettes. Soundwave's tapes in 1984 divide into two airborne ones and three ground based ones. So leaving one of the latter out, Ravage because the other two pair up nicely, we get something like this:

Brawl becomes Rumble
Swindle becomes Frenzy
Blast Off becomes Buzzsaw
Vortex becomes Laserbeak
Onslaught becomes Soundwave

Back to the toy we're meant to be talking about. Here's how to assemble Defensor:

Hot Spot

Hotspot forms the torso for Defensor. From robot mode, remove the weapons, retract the fists, swing the arms down to the side of the chest and peg into the sides. Swing the legs out to the sides at the hips and then back in at the knees. Lower the robot's head, fold the ladder turntable up and flip up the combined robot's head from the turntable base with the ladder going down the robot's back. Fold the chest plate down pegging the two blast shields onto the exposed holes on his chest. Cover the black robot upper legs with a black waist piece. He's now ready for you to attach the Protectobot limbs after which you peg in the fists and feet which are supplied with Hotspot.

The other four parts have a choice of being an arm or a leg:

Streetwise

Arm mode: from car mode remove the weapons, fold the head down under the car to act as the connector and add a fist to the end of the arm. For extra weapons replace the fist with the vehicle's cannon rotated to face outwards.

Leg mode: from car mode remove the weapons, plug a foot in and fold the bonnet backwards. He should now slide on top form the leg but you may need to pull the arms out to the sides to get him to connect without encountering any resistance and then push the arms back in to hold them in place.

Groove

Arm Mode: Fold the front wheel back, fold the head right the way forward to form a connector under the vehicle. Fold the front wheel back. Plug a hand into the hole in the end of the saddle. Defensor's instructions show Groove without his cannons but I like to leave them on to give Defensor some wrist cannons.

Leg Mode: Fold the front wheel back and then swing through 180 degrees so the wheel is on the front of the saddle. Plug a foot into the hole at the rear of the saddle. Again Defensor's instructions picture Groove with the weapons removed but again I'd leave them on and have them pointing forward.

Blades

Leg mode: remove the weapons, fold the tail fin halves forward, peg into a foot, fold the front of the helicopter forward and plug in as a leg. At this stage I'd re-add the weapons to give the leg some firepower.

Arm mode: Transform to robot mode, removing the weapons, folding the head forward, bringing the blades together and plug a hand into the base.

Arm Mode (Philip's version): Fold the front of the helicopter back, fold the head down under the helicopter and fold the front back into place. Remove the weapons, fold the tail halves forward and re-attach th weapons. Plug the hand into the base.

First Aid

Leg mode: From vehicle mode fold the front of the ambulance back. Attach a foot to the rear of the vehicle and attach to the knee of Defensor. Fold the front of the vehicle back.

Arm Mode: From vehicle mode fold the front of the ambulance back and fold the head under the vehicle. Flip the back half of the vehicle around 180 degrees. Peg a fist into the hole at the bottom of the wrist. Extend the arm. Attach.

I don't like the look of this arm mode: the exposed outer part of the lower arm and the folded back vehicle front sticking out to the sides annoy me. So here's my version: Fold back the front of the ambulance, fold the head down and fold the front of the ambulance back into place. Attach hand to the hold in the back of the ambulance meant for the cannon. Attach. Yes it's a shorter arm, but it looks much better to my eye *and* it gives Defensor some elbow articulation with the forearm being able to fold in.

Defensor

Defensor is then assembled by plugging two limbs in as arms and two as legs. The traditional arrangement is:

Right Arm: Blades
Left Arm : First Aid
Right Leg: Groove
Left Leg: Streetwise

but the exact configuration is up to you. I could make a good argument for using Blades & Groove as the arms based on their vehicle weapons being able to serve as wrist mounted cannons. Even if you don't do that each hand can gold one of Hotspot's Fireball Cannons, Defensor being the only Scramble City Combiner at that point with two guns - Superion & Bruticus have one each while Menasor has a gun and a sword.

Whichever combination you choose you get a solid robot, with a nice colour balance to him. All the limbs are along a red/white/black theme making them match up better than any of the combining robots since Devastator. Here Hotspot's blue doesn't matter as he's serving as the torso for the robot rather than a miscoloured fire engine/Optimus Prime clone. His only designed articulation is his turning shoulders which allow him to raise his weapons, but both the feet and hands turn as a result of their pegged design. You can just about get a knee out of each leg by virtue of turning the combining post backwards in each limb and using my alternate method of transforming First Aid you can gain an elbow. The head will also just about turn but this is limited by the ladder hanging down the robot's back. The proportions are better on this toy beating Superion's gangly look and Menasor's "my head is in my chest" appearance. So for my favourite 1986 Scramble City/Special Team combiner it comes down to a straight head to head between the later 2 models, Defensor and Bruticus. And I think Defensor wins. There's a complete one now sitting on my shelves and I'm very pleased to have him back.

Defensor's components, The Protectobots, were sold separately for you to collect in 1986 & 1987. At the same time a giftset containing all 5 Protectobots was available . Defensor's one re-issue came in 1991 when the individual Protectobots were re-issued as part of the gold carded European Classics range.

In Japan Defensor was renamed Guardian. Oooh, that's a great name for this toy and somehow feels just right for the theme of the toys that make it up. Guardian's components were sold in Japan in 1986 as the following:

C-71 Hot Spot
C-72 Graze (Blades)
C-73 Streetwise
C-74 Groove
C-75 First Aid

In addition Transformers toy C-76 was a Guardian gift set.

Guard City

Guard City combines an element of Defensor's Japanese name, Guardian, with an element of the range name Guardian was part of, Scramble City, the Japanese name for Special Teams.

Guard City was only sold in Japan as Operation Combination's TFC-04 Guard City box set which contains:

Fire Chief (Hotspot)
Streetstar (Streetwise )
Sparkride (Groove )
Fly-up (Blades )
Safety (First Aid )

TFU is at the moment very deficient when it comes to Guard City and it's components. The best photos of this rare toy can be found in Maz's Guard City Article

If anything Guard City's colour scheme is better than Defensor's but it could do with a few tweaks: the orange of Fire Chief's chest plate and the blue of it's hinge stick out a bit: The hinge needs to be the same red as the rest of the fire engine, as probably does the chest plate, but black might work just as well. Curiously the light blue of Fire Chief's ladder turntable looks OK surrounding the head. The problem here lies more in the dark blue of Fly-Up as your eye is drawn towards that limb as it's coloured differently to the rest who are predominantly bright white.

Don't bother looking for a Guard City set: You'll pay through the nose for one. I checked on 19th August 2010 and found one with a BIN of £961.90! Instead pray for a re-release of Defensor and E-Hobby doing a version where the colours on Fire Chief are got right!

Generation 2 Defensor

Generation 2 Defensor is an un-released toy made up of the following Generation 2 Protectobots:

P1: Hot Spot (was P5)
P2: First Aid (was P5)
P3: Groove (was P2)
P4: Streetwise (was P1)
P5: Blades (was P3)

Note the renumbering from above ! We've another image of this toy where G2 Defensor appears with the similarly unreleased G2 Menasor and this highlights the "traditional Generation 2 colour scheme" this toy uses: IE a bad one! The orange clashes with everything, the teal Hotspot chest stands out a mile and neither shade of dark blue quite works with the other components. By contrast G2 Menasor looks quite subdued.

Maybe we should be grateful that this didn't come out!

Future Repaints

During my individual reviews I came up with two separate repaints for Defensor in addition to making Hotspot red as Optimus Prime in the middle of the current combiner.

First we had an Autobot repaint:

Streetwise becomes Smokescreen
Groove becomes Road Rocket
Blades becomes Whirl
First Aid becomes Ironhide
Hot Spot becomes Grapple

I've no idea what to call the combined form !

Then I've got a Decepticon one - all the limbs are black with Hot Spot's repaint being purple:

Streetwise becomes Barricade
Groove becomes Road Pig
Blades becomes Fry-Up[/url]
First Aid becomes Chaser[/url]
Hot Spot becomes Smolder

These would combine to form Scourge/Nemesis Prime

Thank you. I enjoyed this one. Going to get me a Computron next year.