Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 18, 2008 11:52:04 GMT
One of the things Hasbro has looked for when creating the 2nd series of Classics is toys that can easily be repainted into others. Are you regretting that Botcon set slightly now ? Prowl obviously will become Blue/Silverstreak and Smokescreen. Here they've gone for a mold that can be reused with minimal tweaking to be both Sunstreaker and his brother Sideswipe. 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 ?
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 engine piece smaller. They're also 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 Swideswipe 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 (Diaclone ! A Botcon exclusive for next year ?) versions of this mold.
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 - multispoked 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. 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.
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.
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 engine piece smaller. They're also 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 Swideswipe 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 (Diaclone ! A Botcon exclusive for next year ?) versions of this mold.
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 - multispoked 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. 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.
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.
his elf ears are his and his only