Dave's Alternators Rant

     13: Wheeljack

     Heh.  Some lovely (probably unintentional) ironies in this toy.
Accident-prone Wheeljack is lucky number 13.  He's remolded from Grimlock,
whose original body he built.

     http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Alt/Grimlock for the review of the
original mold.

CAPSULE

     Wheeljack: Not a whole lot different from Grimlock aside from head and
colors.  Recommended if you don't have Grimlock, mildly recommended
otherwise.  $19.99 at TRU.


RANT

     Packaging: Standard red Alternators open-faced box.  The toy is labeled
simply as a Ford Mustang GT, no notes to the effect that it's a street tuning
custom job.  The packaging art does not show the left hand, so no indication
if the original art had him holding his sword.  The co-sell on the bottom is
of Shockblast.  The tabs holding the bubble to the tray are of the newer
style adopted for Shockblast.  Two plastic straps kinda smoosh the car
together a bit in the package.
     The instructions are Grimlock's with the name changed.  No art changes.

     Vehicle Mode: At least right out of the box, I couldn't get it to quite
hold together perfectly.  A door or a trunk panel would always be a little
out of alignment.
     Here's a rundown of the mold changes visible in this mode.  The spoilers
in back are more pronounced, and made of black plastic.  The hubcaps are
slightly different, with five double-spokes instead of single-spokes.  The
outer headlight covers have been replaced by smooth black plastic, although
the interior molding seems to still be there.  Okay, that's more a color
change than a mold change, but it alters the look of the car in a way more
than just a color change.
     The body is white (although a lot of this is painted clear plastic) with
bright blue stripes running down the center from front to back.  There are
two thick stripes (11mm wide) separated by a central white area 3mm wide.
Then this is all flanked by one thin (1.5mm) blue stripe 1.5 mm from the
outside of each wide stripe.  Along the bottom of the sides of the car runs a
2.5mm blue stripe with a very thin blue line above and below.  The word
"MUSTANG" is written in white inside these stripes, just behind the door
hinges.  Except for the previously mentioned headlight covers, all clear
plastic parts are the same as on Grimlock.  The license plate is the same but
has WHLJCK instead of GRIMLOCK.
     On the interior, the seats are bright blue.  Everything else is black,
no paint.  This includes the door interiors.

     Transformation: Well, before I could even transform the legs (the easy
part), both doors and the skidplate had popped off, so it looks like they
didn't fix the problems Grimlock has.  On the other hand, having done it
before, the head wasn't TOO hard to get through the hood, despite being wider
than Grimlock's. 

     Robot Mode: The only newly visible remold in this mode is the head,
which is a sort of futurized version of the cartoon version head.  It's
molded in gray and black plastic with gray paint.  The eyes are, oddly,
black.  The silver plastic is now white, the red plastic on Grimlock is
bright blue on Wheeljack.  Plastic that's black on Grimlock is black on
Wheeljack, and Grimmy's gray parts are about the same in Wheeljack, maybe a
tiny bit lighter and warmer.
     There's black and blue paint on Wheeljack's forearms that picks out some
of the details.  The engine block gun has no paint on it at all, not even a
bit of silver on the pony (I intend to rectify that with a paint marker).
The sword is clear and colorless, with blue clear paint down the center,
kinda like a propane flame.

     Reprolabels: Deltastar has a kit of stickers to make the car look more
like the red/white/green Lancia Stratos of the original.  Because they have
to cover up the existing stripes, they're pretty big and therefore
expensive.  But I've got Energon Downshift for that color scheme, and I kinda
like the blue/white/black thing Alt.Wheeljack has going.

     Overall: Like Grimlock, it has a lot of potential but enough problems to
dampen my enthusiasm a bit.  The mold differences aren't that big, aside from
the heads, so if you already have Grimlock, don't worry too much about
getting Wheeljack.

     Dave Van Domelen, needs to rearrange a bit to find room to display
Wheeljack.