Dave's TF: Car Robots Rant: Spychangers - C-005: Autofire C-006: Eagle Killer C-007: Wars C-008: X-Car C-009: Ox C-010: Counter Arrow The same place at Origins that had the Car Brothers for $20 each was also dumping handsful of Spychangers into their 4/$10 discount bin. Oddly, X-car sold out immediately, which I suspect may be part of why the rest were discounted (no way to sell complete sets). If you see a bunch of Nightracers showing up for sale online soon, though, beware. They might be repainted X-cars. }-> Thanks to Hutchins for an X-Car! CAPSULES Okay, the SpyChangers are neat little Hot Wheels scale cars and are even slightly cooler than the original GoBots they're recolors of. But they're not worth even the yen price (about five bucks) unless you're a rabid completist. The ONLY reason I bought 'em was because I found them for the same price the GoBots originally were, $2.50 each. RANTS Okay, first some generalizations. The SpyChangers come on blister cards that do not vary from one to the other (shades of BMac), with a trading card style techspecs under the blister. They are all Hot Wheels scale, and usable on those tracks. However, they're a lot lighter than Hot Wheels, so performance may suffer some. All have identical transformation: pull the rear out to form the legs, pull out the sides to become arms, fold down the front to become the chest. They each come with a gun, and with the exception of Ox, none can carry their guns in car mode (and even with Ox it's a fluke). A small hole for mounting the guns would have been nice, but they apparently didn't want to bother modifying the molds. The one nifty thing the SpyChangers added was rubsigns. But not glue-on things like the old rubsigns. These are integral parts of the paintjob. They use a black paint which turns red when heated by rubbing. If you know where to look, you can generally just make out the Autobot/Cybertron symbols without rubbing. Unfortunately, the rubsigns aren't perfect, and the black area around the Autobot symbol turns a dark grey when rubbed. CYBERTRON: Autofire Original Mold: Blowout/Megatron/Frenzy Altmode: Porsche Colors: Black with flame detailing on hood and doors, silver windows Rubsign location: roof STR 7 INT 8 SPD 8 END 5 RNK 8 COUR 7 FRP 6 SKL 8 Avg 7.125 You may have seen this one's name as Artfire as well. Doug Dlin thinks that Autofire may be a more faithful transliteration, however. As far as I'm concerned, the Inferno Targetmaster recolor in Japan will still be Artfire, and this guy will be Autofire. In robot mode, Autofire has clear upper legs and white/silver boots. Alone of the SpyChangers, he has the glowing eyes gimmick, as the clear plastic extends to the back of his head (although most of his head is painted silver, leaving just a small window for the lightup effect). His gun is black. CYBERTRON: Eagle Killer Original Mold: Firecracker/Optimus Prime/Sideswipe Altmode: Lamborghini Diablo Colors: Yellow with red detailing and black windows Rubsign location: center of windshield STR 6 INT 9 SPD 8 END 7 RNK 7 COUR 6 FRP 5 SKL 7 Avg 7 Eagle Killer's hood has a stylized thunderbird with "TF" at the center of it. In robot mode, his face and upper legs are white, while his helmet and boots are red. His gun is yellow. CYBERTRON: Wars Original Mold: Gearhead/Soundwave Altmode: Stock car Colors: Red with silver accents, black windows, black "War" kanji Rubsign location: passenger window STR 7 INT 6 SPD 8 END 9 RNK 7 COUR 9 FRP 6 SKL 7 Avg 7.375 Wars's hood has the Japanese for "War" and his doors are emblazoned with BW-font-ish "WARS" on each side. In robot mode, his upper legs and helmet are black, his face silver and his boots yellow. His gun is clear transparent. This guy's a punk, I tell ya. CYBERTRON: X-car Original Mold: High Beam/Bumblebee/Nightracer Altmode: some sort of concept car Colors: Transparent clear over metallic blue with silver accents and black windows Rubsign location: driver's side door window STR 6 INT 8 SPD 7 END 7 RNK 7 COUR 7 FRP 5 SKL 6 Avg 6.625 X-car's hood has a big silver X on it. His torso piece is red, and shows through the body of the car. His helmet is silver, his face red, his boots transparent clear over metallic blue paint details. He has a red gun. VERY cool x-ray style color scheme. The plastic is actually colorless transparent with paint on the inside rather than the outside. CYBERTRON: Ox Original Mold: Motormouth/Ironhide Altmode: Muscle pickup truck Colors: Black and white "cow" pattern with red oxhead symbol on hood and silver windows Rubsign location: passenger door STR 8 INT 8 SPD 5 END 8 RNK 7 COUR 7 FRP 5 SKL 6 Avg 6.75 In robot mode, Ox has yellow legs, helmet and face, with red eyes and black boots. His rifle is a pearly white, not the same color as his body. It can fit snugly in his pickup bed. Some have dubbed Ox the "Gateway Transformer," since Gateway computers come in a box with the same black and white cowhide pattern. CYBERTRON: Counter Arrow Original Mold: Double Clutch/Mirage Altmode: Formula racer Colors: Pearly white with blue stripes and a red&black arrow on the hood and a red 1 on each side Rubsign location: the arrow on the hood STR 5 INT 7 SPD 9 END 5 RNK 7 COUR 7 FRP 4 SKL 8 Avg 6.5 "TM TRANSFORMERS" is printed on Counter Arrow's spoiler. In robot mode, his torso piece (including upper legs) is regular white, contrasting with the pearly white of most of his body. His helmet is blue, eyes white, boots pearly white with blue details. His gun is flat white. Overall: These are nice little toys, but hardly worth the Japanese price, much less the import prices of $10 each or so. Still, they're just enough different from the originals that if you can find them on the cheap, you might want to snag 'em. Dave Van Domelen, notes that the toes of the robot feet ensure that none of these cars can go through a loop with their wheels on the track....