Dave's Alternators Rant 10: Windcharger Seems to be mainly shipping in a four pack with Swindle, Grimlock and Battle Ravage. This one got tampered with in the late design phase, a drive train gun barrel removed (apparently at the behest of Honda). Reproduction replacements already exist for sale online. CAPSULE Windcharger: Both modes have a small problem or two, and an accessory was neutered, but other than that it's a great mold. Strongly recommended. $19.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: Standard "Year Two" red and black open-faced box. The protective bubble has a nifty little flat-topped cone protrusion over the little radio antenna. Grimlock is the co-sell on the bottom. The front (and other places) proclaim this to be a Honda S2000, with no other notes (such as the fact it's a convertible). The ragtop is packaged inside the box with the instructions, so that the interior detail can be seen in-package. On the back, it says that the removable engine becomes a shield, since without the cancelled drivetrain, it doesn't look so much like a gun. Not that it looks much like a shield. Cleverly, the ragtop piece is not rattling around with the instructions under the cardboard inner tray, it's under the lower half of the plastic bubble, taped in place all snug and secure. Of course, this means that if you want to store the car back in the package, you need to make sure everything's secure lest the ragtop fall out. There's the standard plastic strap around the middle of the car to keep the doors from flopping open in transit. VEHICLE MODE This is a Honda S2000 convertible. And while Alternators have been convertibles before (Sideswipe, Battle Ravage), this is the first one where it's been possible to put the top up. More or less. Actually, you take off the ragtop cover and replace it with the top, so you always have a piece sitting off to the side. It's also somewhat difficult to get the cover off, and rather difficult to get the ragtop snapped in fully. The counterpoint to this, though, is that both look well-integrated and stay on firmly. Windcharger is, appropriately, red. The ragtop and interior are black, the windows are clear colorless, the hubcaps are dull silver. There's one bit that's painted red over black plastic, a thin strip behind the ragtop. The paint is brighter than the plastic, and pretty obvious. This is the shortest of the Alternators, at 6.75" (17cm) long. The wheelbase is 4" (10cm) long center-to-center and 2.75" (7cm) wide outside-to- outside. The hood opens from the front, but it's so flush that you need to use a thin blade, a suction cup (or something else sticky), or pushing up on the engine block from below to get it open. The trunk opens, but there's no space inside to store things. The doors swing open and slide out like most Alternator doors, but the slider is pretty stiff. It also slides farther than most. The seats fold forward by about 45 degrees without resistance (and all the way after you get past a "soft ratchet"), and the steering wheel (which is rubbery) turns. The front wheels turn, but do not roll well when turned, because they rub against the fenders. Appropriately enough, the magnetic linkage is back for the front wheels (G1 Windcharger has magnetic powers). The side view mirrors do not move. Inside the hood, the engine block is black with red and silver accents. Behind the engine is what looks like a radiator, light gray plastic with black paint on the grillework. The radiator piece has a rounded double tab that pokes through the bottom and connects the engine block to the interior. Of all the engine block guns, I think I like this connection the best. The ragtop is made from clear plastic, painted black over most of the surface. In addition to the pegs and tabs used for connecting to the car, there's what is essentially a Mini-Con Powerlinx hardpoint near the front center. This isn't really useful for attaching Mini-Cons, the main coolness about it is that this means that the connection points for it to be used as a shield in robot mode will accept Energon weapons. http://automobiles.honda.com/models/model_overview.asp?ModelName=S2000 is the official webpage for this car model, the details on the toy are correct. I'm not going to go into the usual obsessive level of detail, just gonna hit some of the highlights. The side mirrors are chromed. The seats are red down the centerline and black at the edges. The brake disks are visible, but not picked out by bright colors as on Tracks. There's a bit of silver on the top of the gear shift. The short antenna near the rear on the passenger side is the same rubbery plastic as the steering wheel. The tailpipes are chrome, and some of the underbody detail is silver (notably the suspension under the front wheels). The rear license plate is silver with an Autobot symbol on the driver's side half, and WNDCGR on the passenger side half. There is no rear view mirror. There is an obviously missing piece on the underside, as a gray double tab sticks out under the engine, and there's open slots at the middle of the underside. In general, even if the gun was obviously not a shield, it would be clear that something was removed. Like, oh, a driveshaft. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/blindmouse/Random/driveshaft2.jpg (from an AllSpark thread on Alternators Picfics) From what I hear, Honda asked that the gun barrel be removed for some PR reason or other, but this may be apocryphal. TRANSFORMATION I was able to successfully transform it without the instructions, just referring to the box pictures. The legs were particularly involved, and you have to squish the front "bumper" panels past the front tires in the process. The chest and abdomen piece does not peg into position, but at least on mine the joints are tight enough that this isn't an issue. The instructions say to remove the ragtop cover before transforming the chest, but it works find even if you don't, and that way you don't need to leave a part sitting off to the side. The ragtop itself pegs onto 5mm holes on either forearm, while the engine block turns into a "shield" (neutered gun) and is hinged so that its length doesn't cause problems when bending the arms. Be sure to note the position of the hands before transforming to robot mode, since they have to be in just the right position for the rear of the car to fit back together. Also be sure to fold the seats back before rotating the hood piece, or they'll be trapped under the dash! And don't forget to flip out the magnetic couplings before stowing the feet and closing up the front end. Getting the front end together requires a bit of massaging, but the first time only took a couple of minutes, so I don't consider it "frustrating". ROBOT MODE 7" (19cm) tall, there's a lot of black, silver and light gray added to the color scheme in this mode. Other than a vague color matching, there's really no resemblance to the G1 Windcharger toy. Or to the animation model. In fact, while it's not a compelte match, the head strongly resembles that of G1 Omnibot Overdrive. See the picture in the KITBASH section for a general idea of the appearance. I rather like the look of the radio antenna sticking up from the right shoulderpad. The head moves freely on a ball joint. The shoulders rotate on "soft ratchet" swivels, with the rear fender pieces getting in the way of some rotation, but with care you can get them to rotate all the way around. The upper arms are attached to swivels behind the wheels, and combined with an extra hinge at the attachment point can let the arms rise to straight out to the side (although this extra hinge is a little loose). There's a swivel on each upper arm, and 90 degree hinge elbows. The wrists are restricted ball joints, able to swing up 90 degrees for transformation storage. The index finger is hinged, as are the remaining three fingers as a clump. The thumb does not move. The waist turns, but is impeded by the car hood that forms the back armor. The hips are universal joints, slightly impeded by the door kibble on the hips. He can do the "Van Damme Splits", his legs swung apart to 150 degrees and his ankles bent to keep his feet flat. The legs can swing forward about 70 degrees (his pelvis does not have a movable armor skirt), which along with his dashboard butt lets him sit down pretty well (he has a steering wheel for a left buttock). There's a swivel near the top of each thigh, and a sideways transformation joint above the knee. The knees are VERY stiff semi-ratcheting joints, and the car kibble on the outsides of the calves keep the knees from bending much. You can get a sort of weird sideways-and-bend going, though, which is good enough for most dynamic posing needs. The ankles are on ball joints, a little weak but not so much that I've been tempted to add nail polish to stiffen them. As mentioned earlier, he has 5mm pegholes on his forearms, that let him mount most Energon weaponry. It's almost like a consolation prize to him for having his real gun removed. The "shield" formed by the engine block pegs onto his palm, the fingers folding around it. It doesn't hold on very strongly. KITBASHING ADVICE The gap where the barrel once went is 4mm wide. For a simple barrel, just take a spare missile that's about that wide and file it flat on opposite sides so that it's 4mm thick (file a bit, check fit, repeat). What I did, however, was a little trickier. I took about 4cm of 5mm thick styrene rod and 1cm of 1.5mm thick rod (not as strong as a metal pin, but easier to work with). I filed one end of the 5mm rod flat on opposite sides so it would snugly fit into the attachment point. I rounded off the end a little so it would be able to fold. Then I drilled a hole through it (very carefully) and inserted the 1.5 mm rod as a pin. I got lucky, and everything was snug enough I didn't need to glue anything, and it stays in position rather than flopping around. Once I had that done, I used some files to reshape the tip so it'd look a little less boring, and painted most of the new barrel silver. It fits in place nicely. The hinge is necessary so that the barrel can fit through the gap under the hood and then fold flat against the bottom of the car. http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/windgun.JPG shows my creation. I may tweak it later, like by adding a magnet to the tip or something, and the paint needs a little touching up. OVERALL Both modes have a few "stuff getting in the way" issues, and it's a pity they neutered the gun, but otherwise I think this is a great mold. I can't say for sure it's my *favorite*, but that's mainly because I have trouble picking favorites. It's certainly in the top three. Dave Van Domelen, is amused at how the line art at the top of the instructions clearly shows Windcharger holding the "shield" as a gun.