Dave's RiD Rant: Spychangers Wave 2 Side Swipe Prowl 2 Daytonus Side Burn CAPSULES Side Swipe/Prowl 2: Side Swipe has a good mold, but iffy colors. Prowl 2 is kinda plain. Being able to store the guns in vehicle mode is a definite plus, though. Recommended. $4.99 at Target Daytonus/Side Burn: Daytonus has a good vehicle mode, but lacks stability in robot mode. Side Burn is okay in either mode. Recommended. $4.99 at Target RANTS Well, there's no techspecs for these little guys, sadly. For those who don't know already, these four molds were initially created back in 1995 at the tail end of G2, but were never released in the U.S. Instead, they were available as part of limited edition sets along with little Lego-like sets. [I have been reminded that the name of those sets was Block Town. Unfortunately, I don't have documentation on how many were made, but some did appear at a BotCon auction.] Thanks to HooperX for some of the car model notes. Common Attributes: All spychangers are Hot Wheels scale with axles that run through the body parts, rather than mounted on individual hub pegs. All transform roughly the same way: the legs pull down, the hood folds down to become the chest, the arms pull out to the sides. What makes them different from the original Gobots toys is that each has a slender rifle that stores in the slot between their lower legs. They are generally very snug (all of mine are, but I've heard of some cases where this is not so) and do not hinder rolling in vehicle mode. All have painted Autobot symbols of various sizes, and most of them have trouble keeping the hood folded all the way down in robot mode. To fix this, sand down the part of the hood joint that has the copyright notice on it. While they do not have techspecs, I will be making up my own. So there. This makes me only, oh, the fiftieth person to do so. }-> AUTOBOT: Side Swipe Vehicle Mode: Customized Chevy Camaro Function: Recon Motto: "Look fast, move faster!" Side Swipe takes great pride in his high speed, but it often gets out of his control, leaving him moving faster than his brakes can deal with. A pair of parachute packs under his spoiler give him one chance to recover from his own excesses in an emergency. An expert with his Sidearm Rifle, he can hit a penny at half a mile once he zooms in with his telescopic optics. Those same optics make him an excellent scout, although he often misses things right in front of him because heıs looking at a suspicious character a mile away. STR 6 INT 7 SPD 10 END 6 RNK 5 COUR 7 FRB 5 SKL 8 Avg 6.75 Vehicle Mode: The green and black color scheme doesn't look so bad in car mode in person, and the silver windows and red accents (and Autobot symbol) fit in nicely. I wouldnıt even have noticed the parachute packs if HooperX hadntt pointed them out, thanks! Side Swipe is definitely a customized linear racing car...lots of speed, not much handling or ability to stop. The wheels are silver chrome, almost solid hubcaps with eight evenly spaced slits parallel to the outer rim. Transformation: Side Swipe adds a little twist to the standard Spychanger transformation scheme. Tabs on the hood piece keep the arms from pulling out, so you have to push in the arms before raising the hood when going to car mode. Robot Mode: While I like the goggles on Side Swipe's head, the addition of blue and yellow to the overall color scheme really breaks down. Too many bold colors. While hardly at the level of Gobot Soundwave, it is kinda ugly. The border of his hood makes the chest a little too dominant in robot mode. The figure stands stably, however. AUTOBOT: Prowl 2 Altmode: Mix of a Crown Victoria, a Ford Mustang and a Chevy Cavalier Function: Law Enforcement Motto: "The rules of the road are there for a reason." As Prowl got more and more involved in the Predacon invasion of Earth, he started to worry about the more mundane duties he was leaving behind. The solution came with the next generation of Spychangers arriving from Cybertron and assuming new vehicle modes. One of these newcomers shared Prowl's passion for law enforcement, and took on a patrol car mode in order to pick up the slack in Prowlıs precinct. He even took the name Prowl, causing some confusion. Prowl 2 (or Kid Prowl as Side Burn calls him) has advanced communications gear and the ability to tap into any law enforcement system with ease. In robot mode, his Nightstick Rifle can either be used as a truncheon or as a stunning blaster. It can be tuned from "stun a human" to "knock Sky Byte out of the air" but causes no permanent damage. STR 8 INT 7 SPD 7 END 7 RNK 6 COUR 9 FRB 6 SKL 8 Avg 7.25 Vehicle Mode: Thereıs a fair amount of mold detail in this blue and white patrol car, but the paint job really ignores this and even downplays it. This makes Prowl 2 look rather plain from more than a couple inches away. A gold strip along the bottom of the doors looks rather out of place, and the oversized Autobot symbol stands out in a bad way. A different set of paint masks would make this a much better toy. Wheels are identical to those on Side Swipe. Transformation: This also includes the hood tabs to keep the arms in place in vehicle mode. Robot Mode: The addition of yellow to the color scheme doesnıt really help or hurt the overall look, but the dark blue mask on yellow head looks kinda odd. It also obscures most of the face details. His gun storage slot is deep enough that you can see the axle through it in robot mode. The gun has a bit of a clip on it, and a corresponding gap in the legs. This means that most of the others cannot borrow his gun and store it. AUTOBOT: Daytonus Altmode: Formula 5(?) Race Car Function: Data Analyst Motto: "It doesn't matter how fast you go unless you know where youıre going." While Daytonus's professional racing form is ill-suited for covert missions, he doesn't mind this at all. Heıd rather remain at base to correlate all the data sent in by other Autobots. However, if comlinks are down and it's vital that a piece of information reach the front line, Daytonus can get it there and make sure the right person gets it. While his Signal Rifle can inflict impressive damage at full power, it is most often used to beam a secret message to a specific person at up to a mile away. STR 5 INT 9 SPD 9 END 7 RNK 6 COUR 6 FRB 7 SKL 9 Avg 7.25 Vehicle Mode: A race car of the same style as G1's backstreet, in golden yellow, black and silver. A good color scheme. Uses the same wheels as the previous two. Transformation: Does not have the hood tabs. The hood is kinda hard to pull down without using excessive force, between the overall shapes and the extra tab at the front of the windshield. I anticipate that this will make it hard to kitbash. The gun is rather hard to get out of the slot, as itıs a bit shorter than most and the legs are longer. Robot Mode: Only white is added to the color scheme, and it continues to look good. The big problem is that the toes are too short, and the figure falls on its face very easily. Thereıs tiny bumps under the toes that seem intended to rock the figure back a little and keep it from falling over, but this doesnıt do enough. AUTOBOT: Side Burn Altmode: Dodge Viper Function: Remote Decoy Motto: None After a few too many attempts by Megatron to use his personality against him, Side Burn decided to turn the tables on the deceiver with his own deception. Using spare parts from the Spychanger repair bay and a regular terran sportscar, he built himself a decoy. Controlled remotely by Side Burn, this decoy can drive at high speeds with good performance, and even transforms into a robot. However, the robot mode doesnıt really look like Side Burn...the decoy is intended mainly for use in vehicle mode. The decoy is armed with a simple laser rifle, and has indifferent combat skills when not directly controlled by Side Burn. STR 7 INT 2 SPD 8 END 7 RNK 1 COUR 10 FRB 6 SKL 4 Avg 5.625 Vehicle Mode: A very good Viper painted quite close to Side Burn's regular color scheme of blue with blue and white flames. It also has its own style of wheel, gold chromed with six spokes. With the gun installed, it has the least ground clearance of the four. Transformation: No hood-tab locking. Not much remarkable. Robot Mode: White and yellow are added to the color scheme, somewhat indifferently. It would have looked better if silver paint were used to pick out the exhaust pipes along the bottoms of the doors, since that would give him clear "Hot Rod style" blaster pipes. the visorslit face is kinda plain and unremarkable, which helped inspired my "drone" techspec. Dave Van Domelen, planning to make Side Swipe into Wheeljack, Side Burn into Tracks, Prowl 2 maybe into Minerva, and might not bother with Daytonus, as it has too many tight, scraping joints.