Phil's Protectobot & Defensor Review

[Philip Ayres]

As I have reported several times a Special Teams/Scramble City combiner has been slowly forming at Phil's DFiS.

The time for him to be revealed is here.

Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you....


Defensor & The Protectobots !

[Philip Ayres]

Streetwise

Streetwise is the Police Car member of the Protectobots. He's an off white police car with a red lightbar over the top of the car and a black spoiler at the rear. In the back of the police car is a 5mm peg hole. This is used for mounting his cannon on via an L shaped connector with a 5mm peg at one end (for the car) and a round clip at the other (for the cannon). The cannon looks a bit odd and does rather dwarf the car. I think Hasbro/Takara missed a trick here: The L shaped connector should have had a 5mm peg hole at the top end and the cannon a 5mm peg allowing it to be used as a hand weapon by Defensor.

Transformation: Fold the back of the car back 180 degrees to form the legs. Fold the front of the car forward 180 degrees to form the body and head. Pull the arms out to the sides. Peg the gun into his hand.

Streetwise's robot mode is tall and thin, very tall for a Scramble City/Special Team limb, his height effectively being twice the length of the car due to the way he unfolds. The only new colour revealed from the front is some red plastic for the legs which is also found on his back, but under the chest we find what is on my version a metal piece but may be plastic on other versions of the toy. We've mentioned his handgun being held in the fist: he's the only Protectobot limb with a forward facing fist hole in robot mode. Sadly there's no way of attaching the vehicle mode cannon in this mode so it forms a useful weapon, a failing shared by his fellow Protectobot First Aid and the Stunticons all of which use similar weapons. His arms move at the shoulders and his legs bend at the knees as part of the transformation but this later joint doesn't have much use as legitimate articulation

If you extend the "older G1 character brought back" analogy to Streetwise - See Hotspot's review for more details - then the most obvious candidate is Prowl.

Streetwise can form a limb to combine with Hotspot to form Defensor or with any of the other Scramble City/Special Team leaders to form a "scrambled" robot.

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.

Streetwise was Protectobot P1 when he was released in 1986. He was also available in the Defensor giftset. He was released in Japan as Transformers toy C-73 and was available in the C-76 Guardian giftset. His only re-issue was in 1991 as part of the European gold carded classics range.

Streetstar

Streetwise's only released repaint is as Streetstar who was only sold as part of the Operation Combination's TFC-04 Guard City box set which also contains Fire Chief (Hotspot) ), 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.

Streetstar is very similar to Streetwise, just having a whiter body and different stickers. If anything the car mode looks closer to Prowl than the original.

Don't bother looking for this, it's one of the big money Transformers sets. Pray that Defensor gets a re-release and this is the E-Hobby repaint.

Generation 2 Streetwise

Streetwise has on famous unreleased version: Generation 2 Streetwise where he would be numbered P4. He would have come out in 1995 as part of the G2 Protectobots in opposition for the G2 Stunticons. Streetwise sports one of the best Generation 2 colour schemes swapping the white for black which changes the car but still keeps the police car theme.

G2 Streetwise has recently had a homage released to him as Botcon Streetstar who uses the Universe Prowl mould further strengthening the link to the original G1 character there.

Future Repaints

If we think that Streetwise could be inspired by Prowl then the obvious choice for a reapint, especially given the spoiler, would be to make the white & black blue and call him Smokescreen.

Our Decepticon police car would have to be a black repaint as Barricade.

[Philip Ayres]

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.

[Philip Ayres]

Blades

Blades is the helicopter member of the Protectobots. He's not the first Autobot Helicopter but he is the first to be done on this small a scale. The rounded front and tail of the helicopter are moulded in red plastic with the middle and landing skids moulded in white plastic. The two part dual rotor blades, capable of being swung together as one blade for storage, the tail rotor and small wheels on the landing gear are moulded in grey plastic, which is a darker shade than that used for Streetwise's body. Both sets of rotor blades spin. At the start of the tail on each side is a 4mm peg on which can be mounted his white twin launchers as weapons.

Transformation: Remove the launchers and set aside. Pull the tail section back. Split the rear half of the tail in two down the middle and fold forward with the tail fins recessing into slots on the forward part of the tail section (The launchers would have got in the way of this bit, that's why they were removed). Stand with the underside facing you. Fold the red nose of the jet back to reveal the head. Pull the sides of the helicopter out (but don't pull on the landing skids!) to form the arms and raise them. Peg his photon pistol into the inside of his fist and re-attach the twin launchers. Fold the blades closed round the helicopter's nose.

Blades' robot mode mainly continues the same colour scheme as found on the helicopter with the white used for his head, arms and upper legs and red for the legs and back. The sole new colour here is a darker red used for his chest which comes in the same metal or plastic variation found on Hotspot and First Aid. His articulation is limited to just his shoulders turning.

So on to our "match the Protectobots to original Autobots" game - see Hotspot's review for why. There's no original Autobot helicopter, they're all cars in year 1 setting a standard for the line (don't get me started on the Aerialbots and the Stunticons!) The earliest Autobot helicopter is 1985's Whirl, and he's not amongst the original Autobot. So I'm looking for a 1984 Autobot, who can fly, and is preferably red and/or white. There's one obvious candidate: Sideswipe. Sideswipe's car body is red, a lot of his robot parts are white, his tech specs say he can fly and as a bonus his tech specs (mistakenly) mention two flares which could be translated into Blades' twin launchers. Though if we're thinking Sideswipe maybe we should break our 1984 limitation and make Blades Red Alert instead !

Blades can form a limb for Defensor or any other robot formed from Scramble City/Special Team combiner pieces.

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.

Very detailed helicopter mode. I'd overlooked Blades for years but really this toy is rather decent.

Blades was released in 1986 as Protectobot P3 and he was also part of the Defensor Giftset. He was released in Japan as Transformers toy C-72 Graze and was also available in the C-76 Guardian giftset. His one re-release was as a gold carded European Classic in 1991.

Blades has in recent year gained a life outside the Protectobots as a Universe Legend, a Universe Voyager (both repaints of various sized of Cybertron Evac) and a Movie Legend.

Fly-up

Blades' one released repaint is Fly-Up (I resist the urge to call him Fry-up, but maybe that's a decent name for a Decepticon version of this toy. Fly-Up 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 ) & 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

Fly-Up makes the white whiter and swaps the red for blue. Apart from Fire Chief, he's the most heavily modified of the Operation Combination Protectobots.

Generation 2 Blades

Blades' has a famous unreleased version from Generation 2 where he would be renumbered P5. White and red are swapped for dark blue while the grey becomes orange and he acquires SWAT team stickers. This last point doesn't stop the packaging from still describing him as a rescue helicopter!

Possible Future Repaints

I've been working through a vague repaint theme for the Protectobots making them into other early Autobots. Given that I've already likened him to Sideswipe then how about repainting him black as G2 Sideswipe or yellow as Sunstreaker? Or stick to the helicopter theme and paint him blue as Whirl.

I think our Decepticon version, Fry-Up, would have to black!

[Philip Ayres]

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?

[Philip Ayres]

Hotspot

Hotspot is a blue Fire Engine. Let's get the obvious point out the way first: Blue ? ? ? In my old age I am willing to concede that there are some blue fire engines out there. But 13 year old me looked at this toy and thought "Why? Fire Engines are Red!" And to this day I continue to hold this view. Most fire engines *are* red. Type "Blue Fire Engine" into Google's image search and the vast majority of your results will be red fire engines. Looking solely at the vehicle mode the only decent reason I can come up with for this *not* being red is that in 1986, when this toy was released, we had continued presence on the shelves of Inferno on the shelves and Hasbro, wishing to avoid confusion, coloured Hotspot something different. There may be more to it than this though as we'll see when we get to robot mode.

Functionally Hotspot beats Inferno: Hotspot's ladder turntable rotates and his ladder extends into 3 sections unlike Inferno's two. The ladder is made of white plastic while the windows and the moulded fire hose on the side of the vehicle are black. The Fire Engine has six rubber wheels: two at the front, two about a third of the way along the vehicle and two towards the rear.

Hotspot has a second vehicle mode described as an Emergency Car Carrier. Turn the ladder turntable round,fold the ladder forward and then pull the turntable forwards initially bringing it up and then pushing down so it ends up behind the driver's compartment with the ladder folded over the top. Pull back on the rear of the vehicle to extend it. Peg the blast shield into the sides of the rear section - they also fit the sides of the front section. Peg the two guns - the instructions call them Fireball Cannons - into the side of the front section. Place a Protectobot on the back of the vehicle. It's a nice bonus mode, and one I didn't know about until I dug the instructions out online to check something else! It's also a good counterpart to Onslaught's vehicle mode which is also a vehicle transporter.

Like all the other 1986 Scramble City/Special Team leaders Hotspot has a base mode. Hotspot forms a repair bay. Like Emergency Car Carrier start by moving the ladder turntable forward, folding the ladder over the cab and extending the rear of the vehicle. Split the rear of the vehicle in two then stand the vehicle on the exposed inner halves of the rear with the underside facing you. Split the cab in two down the middle and fold out to the sides so the front of each half is pointing outwards. Rotate each section of the cab back 90 degrees so the wheels face up upwards. Fold the cab halves forward and lock onto the middle of the vehicle via a peg on the cab half and a hole on the body. Peg the blast shields into the base of the middle of the body so they point out. Fold the ladder forward so it extends out over the middle of the toy. Attach the mechanical arms to the small peg holes on the black sides of the cab halves. Peg the fireball cannons into the outer halves of the base of the repair bay. Hotspot's instructions describe this mode as able to "give maintainance" to mini vehicles, and that has to be a euphanism for something if I ever hear it! What Hotspots instructions *DON'T* tell you is that the repair bay can combine with Metroplex's City mode. Look on the back of the back of the centre setcion of the repair bay: There's two small tabs projeting downwards from the base. These slot into the holes on the side of the parts of the city formed from Metroplex's legs as shown here - Motormaster's base mode attaches in the same way while Silverbolt and Onslaught attach to the front of the City's leg sections. Hotspot's base mode is the only one of the four original Scramble City/Special Team leaders not to have a released launcher mechanism in Japan - see the Scrambled City website for details all the other launcher mechanisms. Some conjecture as to what a Hotspot launcher might have involved can be found here.

To Transform Hotspot into his robot mode take the Fire Engine and pull down on the rear of the vehicle to extend it, forming the legs. Stand with the underside facing forward. Split the cab in two and fold down to the sides to form the arms, then pull the front grill out to reveal the hands. If the head hasn't already popped up then press it down or wiggle it about to get it to come up. Fold the red plate on his stomach up to cover the chest. Place a gun in each of his hands.

Hotspots robot mode reveals a black head with a face plate, crested forehead and aerial ears on each side. Black plastic is also used for the outer halves of the arms and the upper legs, while the chest panel is red, moulded in either plastic or metal depending on which version of the toy you own. The rest of the toy uses the same light blue plastic as the vehicle mode. The articulation is limited to shoulders that turn and raise up at the body. The legs do fold to the sides at the knee & hip but these are more Transformation joints than meaningful articulation.

Now remember that we think that the fire engine would look better if it was red? That would make the robot into a predominantly red one and a toy that strongly resembles Optimus Prime. If you look closely at the chest plate you'll see there's two window like rectangles (covered by stickers on the TFU pictures that if they were painted or stickered black would look just like Prime cab windows. I've also seen a picture of one of Hotspot's repaints in Transformers Generations that has the repair pay arms attached in robot mode and pointing upwards which makes them look like Optimus Prime's exhaust pipes. So did Takara originally intend this toy to be Convoy/Optimus Prime? All four of the Scramble City leaders combining with Metroplex points to them all being on the same side and probably a left over design from the Diaclone line when that was cancelled. Optimus Prime's origins are also in Diaclone, in this case as Battle Convoy. Battle Convoy gets one upgrade in Diaclone becoming Powered Convoy who becomes the Transformer Ultra Magnus, so it's not out of the question that he'd get a second becoming Hotspot. Even if it's not meant to be Optimus Prime, a red repaint would make a decent Optimus Prime fire engine especially as Optimus as a fire engine is now accepted after Super Fire Convoy. The thought also comes to me that if Hotspot is Optimus, could the other Protectobots be any of the other original Autobots? We'll explore that theme in their reviews.

Hotspot does, of course, also form 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.

I like Hotspot. I've had one for years, weaponless and devoid of team mates, floating around in one of my toy boxes. At the start of 2009 I decided to complete him and Defensor and though it's taken a little longer than I thought the complete version now stands on my bookcase eying down the Piranacon reissues. Yes, he's the wrong colour but he's effectively a FIVE changer with a very good fire engine mode, a variant of which forms the car transporter mode. The base mode is unfortunately probably the worst of the four 1986 Scramble City leaders, the robot's OK for the time and the torso mode is nice and solid. I like that Defensor's head is integrated into the Hotspot toy rather than being a helmet for the standrad robot head and that the blast shields for Defensor's chest are used on some of the other modes a well making them feel part of the rest of the toy rather than just add-ons for the combined mode. Well worth a look.

Hotshot was sold in the west in 2986 & 1987 where he Protectobot P5. He was also in the Defensor giftset. He was sold as Japanese Transformer toy C-71 and also as part of the C-76 Guardian giftset.

Hotspots only reissue to date is as part of the European Classics line in 1991.

Hot Spot has recently has two new versions, both now entitled Hot Zone and sadly non combining, as a Universe Legend, itself a repaint of the Legends of Cybertron Optimus, and a Titanium toy, again a Prime repaint, this time of Titanium Robots in Disguise Prime. I await the favour being returned with a red fire engine version of the Hot Spot mould named Optimus Prime.

Operation Combination Fire Chief

Hotspot's only released repaint is Fire Chief, who was only sold as part of the Operation Combination's TFC-04 Guard City box set which also contains Streetstar (Streetwise ), Sparkride (Groove ), Fly-up (Blades ) & Safety (First Aid ).

On the face of it Fire Chief is a lot more like it with the majority of the light blue becoming red and the chest plate becoming orange. Unfortunately certain parts remain the pale blue of original Hotspot including the fists & front grill, the top decking of the fire engine, the turntable base, the hub cap and the hinge for the chest plate. This results in an odd mismatched design with the pale blue parts sticking out like a sore thumb. I look at this and think it can't possibly be the way the toy was chosen to be and can only conclude that it's a factory error that Takara were then stuck with !

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

Generation 2 Hotspot

There is one famous un-released repaint of Hotspot, his Generation 2 version numbered P1, which would have come out in 1995 alongside the rest of the Protectobots and the Stunticons. While carded samples of the limbs for both groups are known to exist, there's no known carded versions of both team's leaders. Hotspot would have again been mostly red but the rest of the toy is ruined in typical G2 style with the parts that were light blue on Fire Chief, the black body parts being orange and the chest panel being a teal blue. Lovely !

Future Repaints

Hotspot has a few repaint possibilities. The obvious one, as I've kept mentioning, is changing the blue to red (and the black to dark blue ?) to make Optimus Prime. If we're doing Optimus Prime, why not do Scourge as a black version. And as a more left field idea how about an Evil Purple version named Smoulder after the Power Core Combiner? You could also perhaps remake the Protectobots as other early Autobots with some small changes: if you made the ladder into a crane arm and repaint the blue as yellow he could serve as Grapple.

[Philip Ayres]

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

[Shockprowl]

YEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!!

Defensor is a great super robot and the Protectobots are a great team. I always like the variety of them. Between me and my bro we all them all bar Groove. I traded them ages ago though. Kinda wish I hadn't now! Well done Big Phil!

[Philip Ayres]

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

[Shockprowl]

I had the same feeling with Abominus couple of years ago now. I'd had Hun-Gar, Blot and Cutthroat since I was a kid, so finally getting a Sinnertwin and Rippersnapper was brilliant! I don't think it actually took me long to get them, but it was when I was just getting going again in collecting, so it was a major triumph! There's something about completing a set, isn't there? I'm like that with my Prowl and my Strike Plane obsession, having to have every Prowl (well, every true Prowl anyway!) or every Starscream, Skywarp and Thundercracker in the same mold. What's that about?!

[Hero]

Pretty informative stuff about the Protectobots.

===KEN