Dave's Transformers Classic Rant Pepsi Optimus Prime Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Classic/PepsiPrime Weird. When I was at a conference in North Carolina, I spotted a few Mountain Dew bottles in the recycling bin in the lounge at the dorm used to house the cheaper guests (i.e. me) and snaffled off the caps. I don't buy any Pepsi products these days, so I saw it as a chance to at least get a few entries in the "Transform Your Summer" contest. I entered two codes for Pepsi Prime and then forgot to enter the other two before the contest ended. I got no notification, figured that had been that. Then, on October 3, a box from Young America MN arrived at my door. A Pepsi Prime. Checking around, I saw that other people who had entered were now getting a second round of Primes too (one person ended up with FOUR at last count). My guess is that once they finished sending out the ones from random drawings, they found they had plenty of Primes left, and started doing second chance drawings or something. So I got me a Pepsi Prime totally for free, didn't even have to buy any soda. This is also the first full-sized and intact copy of the G1 Prime mold I've ever owned. I never had the original, and the G2 version I picked up on clearance was an opened-and-returned version with no fists. Okay, the trailer's different so it's not "complete" in the sense of having Roller et al, but it has fists. And I have WST versions and I think one other reduced size version of the mold. But still. :) CAPSULE Pepsi Optimus Prime: A noticeably modified version of the original Prime, although at least they kept the die cast metal. Some cute elements, but longer on the nostalgia than on the actual "fun toy" value. If you can get him fairly cheap and have no other version of the mold, you might want to consider it. Or if you really want to have a drinks trailer for the office. Free for me, price on secondary market variable but likely to drop with the flood of second chance copies being mailed out now. I mean, seriously, is the guy with four going to keep all four? [Later update: Hasbro was selling them at BotCon and Comicon International for $20-25.] RANT Packaging: Okay, the box is why I'm putting this into the Classics directory. While it doesn't actually say Classic anywhere on the box, the trade dress of the box is pure Classics. An amusing tweak is that the "dotted line" elements with parallelograms lined up on a metal-tone strip are neither Autobot red nor Decepticon purple...they're Pepsi blue. The Pepsi logo is also plastered on every side except the bottom (which is metaltone and almost blank except for barcode, manufacturer info and choking hazard warning). The box is a rectangular prism, no funky shapes, with a window dominating the front side but all other faces opaque. 13.25" (34cm) wide, 6" (15cm) tall and 4" (10cm) deep. Prime is packaged in vehicle mode, with his fists in the blister above his cab, and a cut-out of a Pepsi bottle in the trailer rack. The rifle is above the fists, but not visible until you slide the blister tray out. The front, aside from the window, has the TF logo in the upper left, the name tag for Pepsi Optimus Prime just right of center top, and the right quarter dominated by a nice comic-style picture of Pepsi Prime. The Pepsi logo is below this pic. The top panel has a photo of vehicle mode with the trailer empty, plus various logos. The background is the usual ruined city on fire thing from Classics. The right panel has robot mode standing next to a 20oz bottle of Pepsi and the advisory, "Bottle not included". The left panel has photos of both modes against the burning city. The back shows both modes larger, with the techspecs in the middle between them. The backdrop behind the blister is a simple white card. Between it and the box are the instructions and a sticker sheet. The instruction sheet shows where to apply two stickers to the wrists, but the remaining stickers (a 2cm-tall Autobot symbol and two 3cm by 7cm Pepsi logos) are to be applied "anywhere on the toy". The sheet is old enough that it has a Takara logo on it, rather than TakaraTomy. The instructions use photographs in grayscale, with a parts picture, instructions for storing fists and rifle on the underside of the trailer (NICE touch), label application, four-step transformation, and some half-strength line drawings of bottle or cans to show how the trailer can carry either on 20oz bottle or three 12oz cans. Not included, of course. The back of the sheet is blank. There are no twist-ties, the clamshell blister alone holds things in. The blister halves are securely taped together, though. The lip of the lid piece is wide enough you have to remove or cut all the tape pieces and lift it off, trying to leave one side taped is too awkward. A single rubber band holds the front of the cab together. The fake bottle inside is actually a piece of cardstock wrapped into a cylinder with a bottleneck piece in front. AUTOBOT: PEPSI OPTIIMUS PRIME Altmode: Flatbed tractor trailer Previous Mold Use: G1, G2 (cab only in both cases) Previous Name Use: G1 Motto: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." It is of paramount importance to OPTIMUS PRIME that his mission and the presence of the AUTOBOTS on Earth remain a secret. Part of maintaining that secret is changing his disguise from time to time, though never so drastically that he has to get used to a whole new vehicle mode. This new disguise helps keep him incognito, hiding his presence from the DECEPTICONS and allowing him to plan their defeat without interruption. As an added bonus, this disguise, like a few of his past ones, lets him hook up his fellow AUTOBOTS with some fee Earth delicacies the rarely get to enjoy. STR 10 END 10 SPD 6 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRB 8 SKL 10 Avg 9.25 Or is that Paramount importance? Wink wink. And the "a few of his past ones" is a nod to the G1 Pepsi Prime (which was just regular Optimus Prime with a Pepsi sticker across his trailer, IIRC) and the more recent Pepsi Prime based on Laser Optimus Prime. Vehicle Mode (Cab): According to the Cybertronian Guide, this is a Freightliner COE (Cab Over Engine) semitractor. 5" (12.5cm) long, 2.25" (5.5cm) wide, 2.25" (5.5cm) tall. This isn't quite the same mold as G1 Prime, the main difference is that he has short stacks, with the chrome smokestacks in back of the cab barely rising above the level of the roof. We're talking less than a millimeter above. The top front of the cab and the rear bits in back are die cast metal. The rest of the cab is bright red plastic, the rear section a slightly metallic dark blue plastic. The front grille, headlights, bumper, stacks, fuel tanks and wheel hubs are all chromed silver plastic. Windows mounted in the metal part of the cab are clear colorless. Pulling down the metal part reveals a low-detail interior with dark metallic blue "seats". The tires are all very dark gray rubberized plastic with "DESERT DOG" and "FORMULA" printed on them. A peg sticks up at the position of the fifth wheel to accept the collar of the trailer. The metal part of the cab is painted bright red. A white Pepsi swoosh runs along the mid-height of the cab, and the lower section of the cab is painted metallic dark blue. The front license plate is the Pepsi logo (just the word, not the ball). On the top rear part of the passenger side is a white Autobot symbol outline. On the driver's side, instead of a matching Autotbot symbol as on most Primes, there's a Pepsi logo (ball and word) in a white outline. Red white and blue Pepsi swooshes are also printed on the rear "bumper". There's a rubsign on the roof. I suppose you could put the big Autobot symbol sticker here, but why? An odd note, the front axle is too long, and slides back and forth. Probably meant to avoid breakage when the legs swing arounf in transformation. Vehicle Mode (Trailer): 9.25" (23.5cm) long and 3.5" (9cm) wide, it's a flatbed with two spars rising up on each side to a total height of 3.5" (9cm). Attached to the cab, the combined length is 12.5" (32cm). The bed and spars are made of light gray plastic. The "spine" underneath is black plastic, with two slightly metallic dark blue "legs". The four wheels at the back are identical to the rear wheels of the cab. There's no paint at al, but each spar has a Pepsi logo sticker. The spars have flexible clips designed to latch onto a standard 20oz soda bottle. They'll also hold 24oz plastic bottles, and can handle slightly stouter 20oz'ers with strain. Small raised lips in the bed are there to hold stable three cans of soda, with "engraved" outlines showing where the cans go. Oddly, each can area also has a shallower center cross lip and outline circles for 1.5" diameter containers. Not really sure what would go there, probably some kind of Japanese energy drink. [Update: the smaller holes are for transporting "bottlecap" figures, not drinks. Little PVC figures that stand on 1.5" diameter bottlecap-like structures. Heck, I even have a few of those. Thanks to Doug Dlin for pointing it out.] The underside of the flatbed has several pegholes. The two at the rear are for holding the robot fists, an alternative to the old way of storing the fists in the cab. The ones on either side are for the rifle. Also on the underside are blue legs that can be swung forward to stable pegged positions at the front to let it stand stably separate from the cab. There's also a peg that will hold up the front as well, and is a bit odd. In fact, in general the underside of the trailer looks like it was designed for something different and got repurposed. The copyright notice is 1992, but it might just be a piece reused from G2 Prime. [Update: yep, about 2/3 of the way down http://snakas.web.infoseek.co.jp/misc_item/pepsiconvoy.htm compares the two trailers from underneath. You can also see the bottlecap figures there.] Transformation: Pretty simple, and a touch partformery. The rear section swings down and separates into legs, as with many Primes to follow it. The rear sides fold out as shoulders, with the lower flanks becoming forearms. A panel on the roof flips over to deploy the head. Then plug in the fists. Robot Mode: 6.25" (16cm) tall. The head and fists are that swirly dark blue plastic, and the thighs are chromed silver plastic. The fists are not the same as G1 Prime's mold, they have little collars sticking up above the fists to help hold the rifle more securely. The peg holes are 5mm, which is nice. I think the rifle peg is also lengthened a little in this version compared to G1. The short stacks also stand out pretty harshly in this mode. The stickers applied to the tops of the forearms are meant to be a continuation of the dark blue paint on the outsides and fronts of the forearms, but it doesn't really match that well. The faceplate and forehead tablet are painted silver, the eyes are yellow. He has more Pepsi swooshes on his kneecaps, and the Pepsi ball is printed on each ear. Total corporate sell-out. The shoulders swivel with soft ratcheting, and the transformation hinge lets the arms point more to the side. There's a swivel above each soft ratcheting elbow. The pegged fists can rotate at the wrist. The legs can swing back on transformation joints, but not forward. The knees bend and the toes can point, but the lack of hip range keeps these joints from being too useful. Overall: Hey, I certainly got my money's worth. :) It's a nice bit of nostalgia and amusing corporate whoring, and it feels like the quality control was good. Still, with so many superior Prime molds coming out since then, it's hard to get too excited about this one. Dave Van Domelen, putting it back in its box and sticking it in the closet. Just can't justify clearing the display space for it.