Review #12: "Classics" Tracks & Wheeljack - Mold Mates
(Reveal the Shield Turbo Tracks and Generations Wheeljack)
Here we have "Classics" style updates of two iconic Generation One characters, Wheeljack (the white car) and Tracks (the blue car). Unlike past "Mold Mates" reviews, where the toys being reviewed were updated versions of G1 toys that likewise shared a mold, (or, like Junkheap, didn't have a toy in the G1 toyline) here one mold is being used to represent characters whose toys were originally completely different in design. Does this shared mold work as a convincing homage for both characters?
Let us take a look and see. |
In vehicle mode, Tracks (which was the first of these two released in America) definitely looks the part. If you only had Tracks, and were trying to figure out Wheeljack from looking at the car, you might not be convinced. But the changes in the mold -- adding the spoiler and the extended front end -- give Wheeljack enough of his original toy's design elements to sell his unique look, as well. Of course, both of these figures are helped enormously, in my opinion more so then any of the other figures I have reviewed on this site thus far, by their Reprolabels.
That isn't to say that they didn't look like Wheeljack or Tracks right out of the package, but it was a very unadorned, plain looking Wheeljack, or a Tracks with a much less classy flame pattern on his hood, looking more like some sort of tribal tattoo then anything resembling the flaming shield of the original Tracks. The Reprolabels sticker set actually offers two hood options for Tracks, the second pictured to the right thanks to a photo I pilfered from their website. Both flame patterns are quite nice, and in fact I dare say the one to the right is a bit more "G1" looking then the one I used on my toy. Alas, my personal preference didn't care for the faction symbol being so integrated in with the flames, so I went with the other -- still rather nice and much preferable to how the toy came -- option.
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Picture from Reprolabels.com.
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So with Tracks, we get the aformentioned new flame design for the Hood. Visible in vehicle mode, Tracks also gets a new licence plate (true to his character's somewhat conceted personality, reading, "2 SEXY"), fog light detailing, reflective stickers for the side mirrors, and two Autobot logos: one for the roof of the car (which will also become the robot mode's chest) and one on the rear window. Yes, when you include the one on his hood, that means that this "robot in disguise" is proclaiming his Autobot allegance a total of three times on his vehicle mode! This is, however, authentic to the number and placement of the faction symbols on the original G1 Tracks toy. Well... mostly. The G1 toy had a rubsign on the roof, and in fact as part of the Reveal the Shield toyline this new version actually did, too. Arguably, it would have been more G1 accurate to leave that be, but I chose to avail myself of a standard faction symbol sticker Reprolabels provided to replace it if you wished. (The rubsign has not been discarded, however. I relocated it to elsewhere on the toy. We'll see it later in this review.)
Wheeljack shares a few of Tracks's stickers, mainly the fog lights, side mirrors, and licence plate. Wheeljack's plate sticker reads, "THE JACK," but is otherwise identical in design to Tracks's. He did have stripes out of the package, but they were much less nice looking. The Reprolabels set gives him strips across his hood that look like they jumped right off the G1 toy and onto this one. The stripes continue onto the roof and sides of the car; again there were stripes here originally on the toy but the stickers have augmented them nicely. Wheeljack regains many more details from his G1 toy. He regains his "539" numbering and his sponsership logos. The sponsorship logos seem to have changed the final "l" from "Alitalla" that the original toy's stickers had to an "i." The original toy's spelling was likely to avoid licencing issues with the Italian airline Alitalia. Presumably as these stickers are an unlicenced product themselves, they felt comfortable going with this more realistic spelling. Where the original toy had stickers that said, "Lancia," this toy instead has stickers that say, "Cybertron." Lancia seems to be the car company behind the car upon which the original Wheeljack was based, changing that on these stickers make sense since this is no longer one of their cars. (Interestingly, when researching what "Lancia" was, I came across this photo on Wikipedia... It is Wheeljack in the real world!) He also gets a faction symbol for his roof. There was one in that same area on him out of the package, but it gets covered up by one of the other stickers.
Sorry to be going on so much more about the stickers them I am about the toys themselves... but as I said, the stickers play a big part in the looks of these guys! Well, let's have a few more looks at different angles of the vehicles, then we'll soon after see how they look as robots. Okie dokie?
Wheeljack shares a few of Tracks's stickers, mainly the fog lights, side mirrors, and licence plate. Wheeljack's plate sticker reads, "THE JACK," but is otherwise identical in design to Tracks's. He did have stripes out of the package, but they were much less nice looking. The Reprolabels set gives him strips across his hood that look like they jumped right off the G1 toy and onto this one. The stripes continue onto the roof and sides of the car; again there were stripes here originally on the toy but the stickers have augmented them nicely. Wheeljack regains many more details from his G1 toy. He regains his "539" numbering and his sponsership logos. The sponsorship logos seem to have changed the final "l" from "Alitalla" that the original toy's stickers had to an "i." The original toy's spelling was likely to avoid licencing issues with the Italian airline Alitalia. Presumably as these stickers are an unlicenced product themselves, they felt comfortable going with this more realistic spelling. Where the original toy had stickers that said, "Lancia," this toy instead has stickers that say, "Cybertron." Lancia seems to be the car company behind the car upon which the original Wheeljack was based, changing that on these stickers make sense since this is no longer one of their cars. (Interestingly, when researching what "Lancia" was, I came across this photo on Wikipedia... It is Wheeljack in the real world!) He also gets a faction symbol for his roof. There was one in that same area on him out of the package, but it gets covered up by one of the other stickers.
Sorry to be going on so much more about the stickers them I am about the toys themselves... but as I said, the stickers play a big part in the looks of these guys! Well, let's have a few more looks at different angles of the vehicles, then we'll soon after see how they look as robots. Okie dokie?
Oh! One other thing, actually, before we look at robots. Tracks has a flight mode! This is a mode that his original toy could form as well, and was also used by the character in the television show.
I transform my Tracks for this mode a bit differently then what the instructions would tell you to do. The instructions tell you simply to attach the missles to the back of the car as shown here, and flip down the doors to form the wings. Alas, that leaves a rather ugly gap above the wings, where the doors were when Tracks was simply a car. Somewhere else online (it has been a while, so I forget where exactly and thus I can't give proper credit) I saw someone suggest using Tracks's arms (which would normally just stay stowed completely away) to fill in the gaps. Still not the best looking mode there is, but that did help things signifigantly. That... combined with a good camera angle... make for a half way decent flight mode. |
Technically, you could do something similar with Wheeljack. The main difference would be that since his spoiler would prevent flipping around the panel that provides the attachment point for the missles, you can't attach the missles there. Of course, Wheeljack doesn't actually have those missles, so that might make it difficult, as well. Wheeljack does have a pair of wrenches instead of these missles, and the wrenches, when attached to a different point on the toy, can be thought of as guns for the flight mode. While I haven't tried it, it looks like the placement of the guns would interfere with the trick of using the arms to fill in the gaps. Of course, this mode is really an artifact of the shared mold, Wheeljack never had a flight mode in G1, and in fact I cared so little for this mode's existance for Wheeljack that it never even occured to me to photograph it.
So... Robots!
So... Robots!
This mold works really well for both Tracks and Wheeljack. The obvious difference between the two are the unique head sculpts, both of which look very much like the G1 characters' heads. On the surface, it may just look like Wheeljack's legs are the same as Tracks's, only backwards. Looking closer, however, one can see many changes to the internal construction and working of the legs to help make them unique for each character. The main cosmetic effect is that Wheeljack ends up being a bit shorter and somewhat stockier looking, further helping each robot to look like a unique character. Finally, the wings that each character sport in robot mode have been given different tips for each character, again paying nice homage to the looks of these characters in both the original 80's toyline and television show.
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For shoulder mounted weaponry, Tracks sports two white missles. These come straight off of his G1 character design. Wheeljack has a shoulder missle of an entirely different design, again that look very similar to the shoulder weaponry you would have found on his G1 toy. It is worth note that his G1 toy had missles on both shoulders, but as in the television show Wheeljack had a missle launcher on only one shoulder, I can be quite content with this toy only having one as well. When it comes to hand held weaponry, Tracks has a gun that looks suspiciously like Wheeljack's missle. (Shhhh....) Wheeljack, meanwhile has no hand held weapons. He does have a pair of wrenches, however, which fit his character being a tinkering inventor. When not in use, the wrenches can be stowed by clipping them onto posts (that Tracks lacks) on the insides of his legs. Otherwise, he can hold them in his hands.
The Reprolabels for these guys mainly augment the vehicle modes. In fact, Wheeljack doesn't really have anything on top of what was discussed in that mode. Tracks has a few additional details: a green stripe on each missle, more G1 accurate striping on the wings, stickers for his knee pads, and a bit of yellow detailing for his feet.
The Reprolabels for these guys mainly augment the vehicle modes. In fact, Wheeljack doesn't really have anything on top of what was discussed in that mode. Tracks has a few additional details: a green stripe on each missle, more G1 accurate striping on the wings, stickers for his knee pads, and a bit of yellow detailing for his feet.
The rubsign that I had previously mentioned having relocated on Tracks can be seen on the underside of the gray panel behind his head.
Posability is very good on both of these figures. Unsurprisingly, it is nearly identical between the two. Both have heads on ball joints, ball joints on the shoulders, double hinged elbows, and wrist swivels. They each feature the always apreciated waist swivel as well as ball jointed hips. They each have a swivel at the knee, although in Track's case the knee, while adequate for most poses you may wish to do, doesn't bend quite as far as you might hope it would. The feet have very nice posability, with both the toes and the heels (which, of course, on each figure are opposite pieces) being on ball joints to allow them to remain flush to the floor in various spread leg poses. |
Since I've gone on so much about the Reprolabels for these guys, I thought I might do something a little unusual for myself (the only precident being Soundwave, who is probably right up with these guys for how much the Reprolabels helped out) and show you how these guys looked before they were applied. Alas, I didn't myself take any photos of them in such a state, so I fear I must resort to some stock photography swiped from the Transformers Wiki. (You'll also see the more standard version of Track's flight mode in these pictures, and see how horrible a gap is left in his side!)
Photo from TFWiki.net.
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Photo from TFWiki.net.
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Sailor Moon again provides a size comparison to a standard height DVD case.
So, final thoughts time. This is a fairly sturdy mold and a good Transformers toy. Either version would be a good toy for a child Transformers fan... or go for broke and get both! There are definitely enough differences between the two to make for unique characters. For the adult collector, Wheeljack likely has more apeal as he was a more promanant character in the show, but both are sure to be must haves for any serious Classics collector. I would highly recomend Adult collectors also picking up the Reprolabels stickers to give both of these characters their finishing touches. Excellent updated of G1 characters to a modern design asthetic, both the toys and their stickers come highly recomended. Review by Yotsuya, added 15 February 2012. Please comment! |