Review #20: Generation One "Hot Rod"
April is Hot Rod Month at Yotsuya's Reviews! And to start things off, we will be looking at a Generation One toy!
Hot Rod! Hot Rod, first introduced in the 1986 film, is a red futuristic sports car with orange and yellow detailing with a flame motif. This toy represents that well, but doesn't quite seem to match the animation model as well as some later toys do. Of course, often in the G1 days there were differences between the toy and the 'toon, either to make a character easier to animate or to make a toy cheaper to produce. I did have a Generation One Hot Rod when I was a child, and I do seem to remember him looking more like he did in the show. So it was quite a surprise when, a few years ago upon acquiring this toy, it was not at all what I had when I was younger. I suppose the passage of time makes memories fuzzy. Either that, or I've done more dimension hopping like what I mentioned in my Unicron review. |
So not quite the toy I remember from my childhood, but that does not make this a bad toy. In fact, it is a pretty good example of a standard G1 Transformers toy car. Solid construction, some die cast metal parts, rubber wheels. Not to imply that modern Transformers toys aren't well constructed, but this toy has the sort of heft to it that makes one nostalgic for the way toys used to be made.
Here we have Hot Rod in his robot mode. Much like with the vehicle, this is distinctly Hot Rod, but doesn't quite match his animation model as well as one might hope. The biggest issue is that the spoiler from the vehicle mode doesn't properly reposition itself to be on his back behind his shoulders, stopping this figure from completely capturing Hot Rod's iconic look.
Also, the head sculpt doesn't exactly match the character. It would have possibly been better if the head was red, but this isn't the only G1 figure to feature different head colours on their toys when compared to their animation models. This is a G1 figure, which does mean that the articulation is quite limited when compared to modern standards. In fact, his articulation is pretty much just restricted to his arms, which can swivel 360 degrees at the shoulder, and can also bend at the elbows. That is pretty average for the time when this figure was produced, though, so I cannot fault it. |
Hot Rod looks pretty good from the front, and decent from the side, but from behind he doesn't quite fair as well. Still, with his simple transformation scheme, he does come off fairly sleek as a robot with very limited kibble. Yeah, so he's not as detailed or articulated as a modern figure, but there is something commendable about the simplistic G1 aesthetic that cannot be denied.
His only accessory is a gun that can be plugged into either hand. It's mostly black, with a few white accents. The gun has no storage on the vehicle mode, but as with some of the other things I've commented on, while this would be annoying on a modern figure, this was more common in the G1 days and thus not something I find myself objecting to.
His only accessory is a gun that can be plugged into either hand. It's mostly black, with a few white accents. The gun has no storage on the vehicle mode, but as with some of the other things I've commented on, while this would be annoying on a modern figure, this was more common in the G1 days and thus not something I find myself objecting to.
Well, here's a size comparison with a standard DVD case. He's smaller then the typical modern day figure, but about avarage for a Generation One car.
All in all, a nice figure. A bit disapointing that he doesn't match the character as seen in the show that well. (If nothing else, an over-the-shoulder spoiler would have helped a lot.) But that was sometimes the case in G1 days, so I'm not overly upset by it. And looking at this just as a toy, if one keeps in mind the era that this toy is from (and doesn't look at it with modern toy design expectations) I think it succeeds quite well. Review added 1 April 2012 by Yotsuya. Please comment! |