Studio Series #93 Hot Rod

I still haven't watched The Last Knight (and still don't intend to), but I have watched enough clips to know two things: that Hasbro's first attempt at a Hot Rod figure back in 2017 was hopelessly inaccurate, and that the writers couldn't decide whether he was supposed to be French, or just somehow 'stuck' with the accent, considering he frequently uses French idioms in his dialogue (consistently addressing Vivian Wembly as "mademoiselle", introducing himself with "Je m'apelle Hot Rod", etc.).

His design was pretty good, though, carrying just enough of the Diaclone DNA exhibited by the likes of Bumblebee and Jazz in the first film - even more surprising considering how quickly Bay's movies distanced themselves from that aesthetic - while fitting in with the sleeker, increasingly humanoid styling of the later films.

Given that I bought DX9's excellent La Hire more than three years ago, one could be forgiven for wondering why I'd bother with Hasbro's Studio Series update of their figure from The Last Knight's toyline... And, granted, it does seem strange to spend £26 on a Deluxe class figure that I know isn't going to hold a candle to a larger, more intricate, elaborate and accurate Third Party Masterpiece-analogue, that I already own, and for which I paid just £77. SS Hot Rod may be just one third the price, but can a Deluxe class toy, as produced by Hasbro in the 2020s, possibly be even one third as good as La Hire?

Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there?

Vehicle Mode:

Straight away, what we have here is an excellent representation of Lamborghini's gorgeous Centenario. While its panel breaks are more numerous that those of the TLK figure, they're not so prominent that they hurt the overall appearance of the car. Not to say they blend in particularly well, just that they're surprisingly well-fitted for the most part. The bonnet and back end probably have the highest number of seams-per-centimetre but, while they're not really in line with the real-life vehicle's seams, they're integrated in a way that makes them somewhat less obtrusive than they might otherwise be. Conversely, the seams down the sides might not be as numerous, but they stick out more because most of them are at right angles to each other, where the lines of the car are a bit more subtle. Perhaps the craziest part is the very middle of the rear of the car, where the area below the spoiler is split ten times in the space of an inch/2.5cm. Due to this and typical plastic tolerance issues, the two exhaust panels have a nasty habit of popping off, and the details surrounding the spoiler mounts don't quite line up with those of the adjacent chunks of car.

He retains his weird brownish-grey colouration of the TLK toy, but this one, bafflingly, is a lighter shade, which lacks the metallic sparkle of the original. He also has a noticeably less glossy finish to the plastic which, to my mind, makes him rather duller than a Lamborghini should be expected to look. He also doesn't compare well with his predecessor in terms of paintwork. Where that had the raised 'fin' details on the sides of the car fully painted orange, this (almost) fully paints the bumper, but then has only a bit of linework that doesn't even cover the full length of these details, let along their full surface area. On the upside, the orange linework on the side windows is complete this time, and the rear indicator lights are painted, but with such a dark red, they may as well not have bothered again. The rear windows are painted black rather than being more translucent plastic, and the headlights feature a coating of glossy black supplemented with a silver outline on two edges. Other than that, the only other touches of paint appear to be some brownish-grey where the translucent plastic of the windscreen and side windows become part of the roof and doors, respectively, and some gold to highlight the Lamborghini badge at the front of the bonnet. This latter is rather more basic than the tiny logo that was stamped onto the sculpted bump on the TLK version of the toy. What's strange is that it looks as though two different shades of brown paint were used, as the painted section of roof seems darker than the plastic, while the doors seem slightly lighter.

Of course, the other drawback with the translucent plastic used here is that it's only very lightly tinted with an ugly, smoky brown colour, so it reveals the inner workings of the toy all too clearly. In this case, it's the back of the robot's torso, his shoulder joints and the mountings for the transformation hinges for his door-wings. Toys like this are pretty much perfect evidence in favour of using opaque plastic for windows, both for structural and aesthetic reasons.

Rather depressingly, the wheels are molded in much the same brown plastic as the rest of the car, and the hubcaps are unpainted, so the minimal orange striping is pretty much the main highlight in this form. That's a lot of weight for such a small amount of paint to carry... and, personally, I don't think it works.

Hot Rod's gun - the one that can "stop ze time" - can peg into the slot carved into the rear of the car, just ahead of the spoiler on each side, inside which is the mushroom peg from one of his transformation joints. It's a relatively small slot, and one of the few outright blemishes on vehicle mode, but I'm not sure having the gun attached offers any real improvement. It doesn't even hold very securely, since the tab on the gun is pressing up against the curved surface of the mushroom peg, which can cause it to tilt from side to side and thus work its way out of the slot entirely.

Other than this, I've noticed a few mold defects on mine: the rear section of the front wheel arch on either side - each of which features another sculpted shield representing the Lamborghini logo - looks somewhat scuffed and distorted... Which then got me looking more closely at all of the ostensibly smooth plastic surfaces on this toy, and quickly led to the discovery that actually most of it looks subtly warped. It's only noticeable when light hits in in a particular way, but it seems to me that it's another sign of the reduced plastic quality, or just less precise and exacting manufacturing standards. Still, considering this is a Hasbro toy, it's an excellent representation of the Lamborghini Centenario... But one third as good as La Hire's interpretation? Not really.

Robot Mode:

Well, when I opined that DX9's La Hire was "leagues ahead of anything that might appear in the Studio Series line", I certainly wasn't wrong... but, honestly, this is vastly better than anything I might have been expecting back in 2019. At first glance, this Deluxe class figure is nothing short of phenomenal, and compares pretty favourably to La Hire. However, looking at the figure more closely, some of the proportions start to seem a little off. In particular, the head is mounted a little too far forward, and is sunk too low between the shoulders. Where the CGI has additional detail across the shoulders, with the car's front stacked on top, the toy appears to have the car parts riding much further up on his shoulders, not least because the actual shoulder mass is comparatively smaller. The other obvious omission is the detailing of his back which, for the purpose of the toy, is replaced by the mostly flat roof of the car, concealing the mostly hollow back of his torso. On the upside, he does have his door-wings... albeit with a chunk of solid car panel folded back in on itself, clashing with the bottom of the roof section as they move. Due to the way the arms transform, his vambraces are rather more chunky than they should have been, what little sculpted detail there is on the inside of the vehicle's front wheel wells doesn't quite match the CGI, and none of the outer face is painted. The rest of the arm detailing looks to be very accurate to the CGI, except for the dearth of paintwork. A little silver or gunmetal on the forearm and some orange framing the bicep would have made all the difference here.

On the subject of sculpted detail, generally, there's some really good work on Hot Rod. I'm particularly impressed that the upper waist is formed by sculpted robot parts on the insides of sections of the car's bonnet, even though some of the details are somewhat hollowed-out. The designers and engineers at Hasbro and Takara Tomy still aren't quite rivalling the Third Parties, but it does at least suggest they're either paying attention... or just getting better at their work. This section is much slimmer than it ought to be according to the CGI, but I'm more than happy to forgive that, just because they were clearly trying. The lower part of the waist and the pelvis are both molded in a lighter, more metallic-looking grey plastic that has a somewhat cheap feel, but it holds the detail just as well as the darker plastic used for the car shell. Hot Rod even features the frame for an Autobot insignia more or less where his belly button would be, though no insignia has been applied... Which, come to think of it, has pretty much become a staple of Studio Series toys: we've gone from low-key insignia to none at all. The space is larger than, for example, the central crest on Bumblebee's forehead, which has occasionally been stamped with an Autobot insignia (certainly as recently as SS #57 Offroad Bumblebee), but I suspect the plastic used for these components is the 'unpaintable' kind. The pelvis itself is also quite detailed, but loses some accuracy points for the massive slot carved into it because of the mushroom peg waist joint. Even so, it looks better than his backside, which is virtually non-existent, bar the hexagonal approx 3mm port for a display stand.

The legs come out surprisingly well, with the armour panelling being quite simple, but at least fairly accurate in terms of the sculpt. The inner thighs are horrifically hollow, with the mushroom pegs of the thigh rotation joint completely exposed, but the backs of the thighs and the sides of the calves feature some tech detailing to make up for it. Even the positioning of his wheels at the sides of his knees is technically accurate, though both the CGI and the Third Party version managed to make them rather more low-key. The lion's share of the robot-specific paintwork ended up on the legs, too, with orange panels on the thighs, two separate parts of the shins, and on the toes... but the latter two aren't strictly accurate to the CGI. Ideally, there should have been some silver paint on the shins, but it would have been applied to details that aren't even sculpted in, possibly because it would have interfered with one of the transformation hinges. The feet are rather peculiar, in that the sculpted detailing is back to front: the CGI has the equivalent of his big toe as a separate chunk, but it's the little toe on the toy. I'd suspect it had been assembled back to front, but the connecting slot and tab are actually molded onto the main part of the foot, not the vehicle shell that makes up the sole. Additionally, while it's nice that they added some orange paint to the foot, it's a much simplified application - just a single, irregular block that covers most of the front of the foot, bar the separate outer 'toe', where the CGI shows two distinct bands of orange, the upper one supplemented by silver on the recessed detailing.

Naturally, his weapon makes a lot more sense in robot mode than it did sticking up out of the back of his vehicle mode... Though it does look slightly oversized, unless I'm just not familiar enough with the CGI. The sculpt is fairly detailed and, surprisingly, there's even a bit of paintwork... though it's just dots of cyan on the front of the ring of pods around the midpoint. Unlike a lot of weapon accessories, this gun isn't hollowed out on the sides, but does have a shallow opening in the gun barrel, and it's actually a 2-part weapon: the pod ring is removable. I don't believe this is a feature so much as a manufacturing necessity, since the base gun has a large notch cut out along the top to allow the pod ring to clip into place. Due to the sculpting of the arm/hand, the gun has to be pegged in at a slight angle for it to look 'straight' in the hand. To facilitate proper alignment, there is a notch taken out on each side of the bottom of the pod ring, which accommodates the car panel on the outer face of either hand.

One of the (many) problems with the character of Hot Rod presented in The Last Knight is that the head design is utterly hideous. The sensibilities are very much along the lines of the original movie Bumblebee, but with the addition of a face that looks like a squashed-down version of the entire head from the character model used in some of the IDW comics. In terms of sculpted detail, this captures the look of the CGI more accurately than even the DX9 figure - no surprise, given Hasbro/Takara Tomy would have had access to the movie CGI models - but, as usual, it's let down by the paint job. The very squished-looking area from the tip of the nose down to the tip of the jaw features a fair amount of sculpted detail, including a very defined slit of a mouth, but it's mostly lost in that unpainted, dark brown plastic. In that it more accurately reflects the quantity and location of orange on the face, the paintwork here does improve upon the Third Party figure, but there's still no orange on the sides of his head, and the largest application of silver is to the lump on the centre of his forehead. Additional to that, there are hairline applications of silver for his 'eyebrows' and on the outer edges of his eye sockets, but the bands running back over the temples are absent.

While I've frequently decried the lack of complexity even in Studio Series toys, I'd have to concede that Hot Rod's engineering exceeds both its size class and its build quality in its transformation. Most of it works well enough, and it certainly tabs together securely in vehicle mode... but clearance issues are rife - particularly with getting the arms to stow and rotating the waist. The first problem I encountered was with the ankles, for which the joint embedded in the base of the shin was very reluctant to move, and the images in the instructions just aren't precise enough as to which part needs to move, and when. Once I'd forced the stiff joint past a certain point, it moved smoothly, and the soles of the feet were easy enough to line up with the sides of the shins, but the force required for that initial pop was surprising. As mentioned, one (or both) of the exhaust panels is likely to pop off during transformation, and I've even had one of the legs pop off the ball joint at the hip, despite neither being especially loose. The culprit appears to be the design of the back of the thigh, which can put pressure on the pelvis when rotated past a certain point, thus levering the hip joint out of its socket. The door wings also have a habit of getting in the way at multiple points in the transformation - having to be swung down to accommodate the roof's transformation, then back up to allow marginally more clearance for the arms. Even worse than that, the roof's transformation hinge doesn't allow enough clearance for the waist rotation, so the pelvis basically has to grind past it. On the upside, while the instructions are a bit useless on specific details, they do present the ideal running order for the steps, making it as easy as it would ever be to ensure the myriad small, interlocking panels peg into place. Going back into robot mode, for me, tends to highlight the looseness of the joints for the sections of the front of the car that form Hot Rod's upper chest. The door wings are certainly no less frustrating, and the slim exhaust panels are just as likely to pop off the feet in this direction as well.

Broadly speaking Hot Rod's articulation is excellent but, as always, there are caveats. First and foremost, his ankles function via three separate joints: the foot itself is on a ball joint that offers 360° rotation, but only minimal tilt in any direction, with slightly more downward tilt as a result of transformation. The ball joint is on a hinge that, itself, is attached to another hinge for transformation, both of which, if unclipped, can be used to supplement the foot's up/down tilt with only a small effect on the figure's standing stability. The knees bend a hair over 90°, but the rear wheel frame clashes with the thigh at about the 45° mark, and has to be flexed out of the way to allow the knee to bend to its fullest extent. The hips are insanely poseable, with a good 90° swing in any direction... though it's only 90° to the sides if the inward swing is included - otherwise it's only about 80° due to the sculpting on the thigh. The thigh itself can rotate through about 135° safely, and 180° with a little finessing... but rotating it outward runs the risk of the back of the thigh nudging the leg off its ball joint. His waist rotation is somewhat hindered for the same reason as for transformation - the transformation hinge for the roof is right behind his backside, and clashes with the outer edges of the pelvis - but he can turn more than 90° in each direction, so it's perfectly adequate for robot mode articulation. The arms are mounted on ball joints which, themselves, are mounted on hinges, so he has a very on-brand 'Gallic shrug' along with full 360° rotation around the shoulder, and the arms can raise a little under 90° to the sides (with the shoulder at its highest point on the hinge). Bicep rotation is unrestricted, the elbows manage the regulation 90°, and he has unrestricted wrist rotation. The head is on a ball joint that allows full 360° rotation (required for transformation) and a small amount to up/down tilt, but nothing to the sides.

By and large, I am very impressed with SS Hot Rod. The figure has its issues, mainly in terms of specific aspects of articulation, clearance, and tolerances in the exhaust pipe flaps, but it's a vast improvement on the previous toy in almost every way. There's a tangible sense of the enthusiasm and genuine passion that went into creating this toy, but it's let down by the quality of the materials and the miserly paint job. My main gripes are the colour of the base plastic, the fact that it's really not glossy enough, and the lack of paintwork... All of which has been true of pretty much all Studio Series toys over the last year or so. Hot Rod may be about a third the cost of La Hire but, as good as it is for a Studio Series toy - and, in spite of all my caveats, it really is excellent - I'm still not convinced that it represents anywhere near good enough value-for-money in a world where La Hire exists (and already has a KO).

Now... can anyone tell me, given this guy's vehicle mode, why they didn't just hold off on using the name Sideswipe back in RotF/DotM so they could use it for an Autobot who transforms into an actual Lamborghini, or perhaps make this new character in The Last Knight into Sunstreaker? It's a strong design, but the name 'Hot Rod' was absolutely wasted on him, and his characterisation (based on the clips I've seen) was basically pantomime Frenchman.

I am somewhat curious to know if Hasbro have any plans to license the Citroën DS21 for Hot Rod's initial appearance in the movie... Given that he's never seen in a robot mode that uses those car parts, they'd have free reign to reorganise his transformation as necessary... but, equally, there'd be no real point to it as he appears only briefly in that form, and they've already done the WWII version, albeit as a repaint of the crummy Bumblebee toy.