TOY REVIEW

Name: SPEEDBREAKER
Allegiance: Cybertron
Function: Runaway Gunner
Vehicle Mode: Dodge Viper
Average Price: 1800 JPY

VEHICLE MODE

Height: 4cm
Length: 12cm
Width: 5.5cm
Speed Breaker is probably the sleekest of the 3 Cybertron cars. At first, you look at him and immediately think of Tracks. After all, they are both sleek blue cars with flame details. However, Tracks was a Corvette. Speedbreaker is a Dodge Viper, and has the added touch of an exposed engine block. The flame details are also bloe flames with a white outline, running on the bonnet and doors. The windows are all a tinted yellow, oddly enough. In fact, the entire car body is
transparent tinted yellow, but metallic blue. The engine block has chrome red tubes. His "points of articulation" are his 2 doors, which open, quite realistically, though he has robot
parts inside, no seats. Another touch of realism, is the fact he has an exhaust pipe, which is removable as a missile in robot mode. His blade weapon can also be stored inside the car, though since it's packed separately on the card, you have to place it in during transformation. He also has a small slit in the roof, where the ball joint that holds it on connects, but it's not real bad. While he has no outward insignia, if you turn the left robot arm upside down, the insignia can be displayed in the back window.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

Oh boy, "prepare for complexity, and make reservations to the mental hospital!"(to borrow and alter a quote). Remove the rear bumper and exhaust pipe. Open the doors. Fold the rear wheel sections down, and unfold the robot legs. Now the kicker. A small tab not in the instructions complicates things. Lift the windhsield section up, but a small tab keeps ii fit to the engine block, so you may have to unfold the front to do this. Either way, you can probably pop the front bumper off until you need it again. Pop the left arm up, turn the waist so the small peg faces the arm connector(remove the blade if it's in place), swing the arm down, and rotate the waist back in place. Fold the bonnet halves up and back. Unfold the arm out from under the engine, rotate it so the  shoulder tyre is perpendicular to his back, and fold it in to get the arm in place. Swing the left arm up and lock it into place. Fold the head out, fold the chest in place, pose the arms and legs, and you're done. The bumper and blade fit in his hands. Now, somewhere, in someone's house, someone transformed Fortress Maximus in less time than that took. If you don't mind ruining the "collectibility", you can probably cut the small tab off the windshield to make things easier.

ROBOT MODE

 
Height: 13.5cm
Width: 5cm
After working the most complex Transformer ever, you get his robot form. He's primarily light blue, dark blue, and white, with the silver engine block on his chest, and a visor over one eye. Yes, it's Transmetal 2 Tracks. Lots of asymmetry in this toy, unlike his car form. Kibble is rather bad, unfortunately. The front bumper hangs off his right shoulder, the windshield and roof hang off his left shoulder, the bonnet halves and doors form a "cape" (though not a good one), the back wheels and wheel borders hang off his thighs, and one front wheel hangs off his right arm. Whee. The only car piece that serves a real use is the rear bumper, which serves as a gun. The robot has 16 joints, in the neck, waist, hips, upper knee, lower knee, ankles, shoulders, and 3 per arm. He can take some dramatic poses, but none really great, thanks to the fact half of the car hangs off his back! Still, he looks good standing up, and if you can stand the kibble on toys like Rhinox, you can stand this. He's also notable as the only one of the 3 brothers with a humanoid mouth.
 

Gimmicks: The rear bumper detaches and can fire the exhaust pipe as a missile. The blade weapon also has 2 handles, and can be held as a knife, or as a gun (I think, could be to stab while punching).

INSIGNIA LOCATION

On his left forearm, and alternately, can be displayed in the back window by turning the arm around.

OVERALL

Great car mode, extremely hard transformation, decent robot mode, even if lots of stuff is in the way. Not the greatest of the 3 Cybertron brothers, and probably less stable than Tracks, though right now, could be less expensive. Still, if you like hard transformations, he's great in that department. A "B" at least, could have been better though. A recolour in red is due out in Autumn as part of  a second wave.
This review was written by Kasady Voorhees.
Email
Back
1