Titans Return Box Set Speed Pack Confirmed

SRS ... Serious ... Serious Speed ... Turbocharged Serious Speed ... TURBOMASTERS

So, having messed around with hot rod for most of the day, I have to say that he'd be a perfect figure if it weren't for the idiotic grey arms on his titanmaster, had they been cast in red plastic and helped define his head a bit better he'd be without flaw in my eyes (which probably says something to someone)

william-james88 wrote:

Nemesis Maximo wrote:And man, if this is the only way to get a hold of Tidal Wave and Nautica, i might be sad.

Be very prepared

I like that Hot Rod but he isnt without his issues. he totally fails at an essential aspect many Hot Rods fall victim too, obstructing his glorious spoiler.

Hot Rod has been consistently shown as having his spoiler come over his back in a glorious fashion , framing his head which is the only thing that splits it. it gives him an awesome silouette. But for some damn reason, the modern toys always give him tall dumb looking arms, which look unnatural and restrict poseability.

Look at these shots, his spoiler is never obstructed by his arms or other bits aside from his head:





Getting good shots of G1 is not easy so here's this well made fan art which shows the main hot rod design as I like it:



It comes from the G1 toys which also had that notion that the spoiler shouldnt be obstructed:



By clearly showing the spoiler, you also get a nice mix of bright colours with the yellow purposefully clashing with the red.

And yet what do we get?

This failure



And these arms which compeltely hide out the spoiler



The new MP wasnt bad, but it has these odd red bits coming out of his giant back back which disrupts the silouette



At least this toy gives it the necessary clearance to invoke the framing device, and it looks great



So yeah, a decent toy, but there is definite gripe to be had for ruining a staple design.

william-james88 wrote:It comes from the G1 toys which also had that notion that the spoiler shouldnt be obstructed:

But, Hot Rod's cartoon model was designed by Floro Dery before it was turned into a toy design. Unlike most other G1 toys, the movie characters were designed "movie first, toy second" instead of "toy first, cartoon second".

william-james88 wrote:At least this toy gives it the necessary clearance to invoke the framing device, and it looks great

Only because the instructions for that toy neglect to mention one additional step for transforming the spoiler to let it rest lower behind the toy's collar (much more like on the cartoon model below) instead of behind its head as seen in that pic above.

Hellscream9999 wrote:So, having messed around with hot rod for most of the day, I have to say that he'd be a perfect figure if it weren't for the idiotic grey arms on his titanmaster, had they been cast in red plastic and helped define his head a bit better he'd be without flaw in my eyes (which probably says something to someone)

I've got your solution, Hellscream. Get Titans return Chromedome (if you haven't already). Pop off the Titan Master Stylor's arms; they're jut on simple ball joints. Take Hot Rod's Titan Master Firebolt/Firedrive and do the same. Swap arms between them and reassemble. You are going to LOVE the results. The red plastic is almost a perfect match between Stylor and Hot Rod, and swapping in gray plastic on Stylor is hardly noticeable behind Chromdome's face anyway.

Wolfman Jake wrote:

Hellscream9999 wrote:So, having messed around with hot rod for most of the day, I have to say that he'd be a perfect figure if it weren't for the idiotic grey arms on his titanmaster, had they been cast in red plastic and helped define his head a bit better he'd be without flaw in my eyes (which probably says something to someone)

I've got your solution, Hellscream. Get Titans return Chromedome (if you haven't already). Pop off the Titan Master Stylor's arms; they're jut on simple ball joints. Take Hot Rod's Titan Master Firebolt/Firedrive and do the same. Swap arms between them and reassemble. You are going to LOVE the results. The red plastic is almost a perfect match between Stylor and Hot Rod, and swapping in gray plastic on Stylor is hardly noticeable behind Chromdome's face anyway.

I've tried it too, and I have few pictures so people can decide if they like the look before swapping (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND not doing the swap until you're sure you like the look, for reasons upon which I will elaborate at the bottom.)


Here they are, the two of them together. I'll say right now I'm not actually a huge fan of the results - the more similar colors so help the head itself blend better, but having those same colors behind the faces actually ruins the shape I perceive their faces to be.


Here's Hot Rod's head, and oddly enough, for once it actually looks better on camera. The extra red behind his face makes it look way more boxy - where before at least I could sort of see the grey bits as antennae (like Optimus') behind his head, now it just looks like that whole red bit is his face and then his unique head shape is gone.


Chromedome's got more or less the same issue. I guess it might work better for someone who wants a more boxy G1-looking head instead of the pointier IDW-styled one, though, so there's that.


The two arm-swapped TMs together. I know it probably won't matter too much to most, but I really don't like the way they look now that the arms have been swapped. (It's also a good showcase of the Sharpie work I did to make Firedrive look less bland, but that's beside the point.)

And that picture also makes a great segue into why you should be CERTAIN you like the arms swapped before you do it yourself. I don't know if it's just my copy, but the TMs' shoulder ball-joints were not the same size. That just resulted in a loose left arm on Stylor-with-Friedrive's-arms, nothing big, but as you may notice in the above photo, the larger ball on Firedrive means that Stylor's arm now has a huge (relatively speaking) crack in it. That's not a stress mark, that's an actual crack in the plastic, all the way through from the outside of the cup to the inside.
It seems to be holding together for now, but please bear this in mind if/before you decide to try this yourself. It may so happen that it's a one-off problem and I'm being over-dramatic, but I just really don't want lots of people to end up with broken Stylors/Firedrives if the problem ends up being more widespread.

More $150.00 Cad box sets with more to come?



Eh being broke ain't my problem anyways have me moneys Hasbros!

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:At least two have been rumored, each with its own theme.

Yeah I heard the rumors including the Strength set.

The speed pack supposedly comes with Nautica from Blurr/Brainstorm, Quickswitch from Sixshot, Fastlane, Star Convoy and a Titanmaster called Thunderclap.

Bankruptcy is fun.