{"id":20905,"date":"2012-09-17T02:32:29","date_gmt":"2012-09-17T07:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=20905"},"modified":"2012-09-17T03:44:27","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T08:44:27","slug":"battlegrip-com-review-unofficial-transformers-wheelie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=20905","title":{"rendered":"Battlegrip.com Review
Unofficial Transformers Wheelie"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> Back in July, our first Guest Review Week was a blast! Five great contributors from four great sites all right here at IAT? It was awesome and too fun to only do once! So, \u201cSon of Guest Review\u201d Week kicks off today with the spotlight on one of my favorite toy bloggers, Phil Reed from Battlegrip.com!<\/p>\n

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Back in 1986 Transformers: The Movie introduced us to Wheelie, an Autobot mini-car that talked in rhymes, wasn’t scared of the Dinobots, and generally annoyed anyone over the age of four. And as annoying as it was to listen to Wheelie talk in the movie (and then later in the animated series), that didn’t come anywhere close to the annoyance of how cheap and weak Wheelie’s toy turned out to be. He may have been the only original Autobot mini-car of the 1986 run, but with a bizarre vehicle mode and fairly lame robot mode we would have been better off if Hasbro hadn’t even tried to create a Wheelie toy.<\/p>\n

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Transform your clocks over twenty years to 2011 and Wheelie is back, this time from a third party company and not as an official Transformers toy. If you’re unfamiliar with the third party scene here’s the short form: Individuals and small companies are creating toys and accessories inspired by official Transformers comics, toys, and cartoons. Wheelie here, even though he looks like the Hasbro character (more like his appearance in IDW’s Transformers comic than the 1986 movie) is actually a completely unofficial toy. For more on this scene you can check my Transforming Collections project on Kickstarter<\/A>.<\/p>\n

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Metal!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first thing you notice when you hold Wheelie is that he’s hefty and extremely durable. Made of a mix of tough plastic and diecast metal, Wheelie feels sturdier and of a higher quality than the official Transformers toys being released by Hasbro and Takara today. That heft comes at a price, though, with Wheelie selling for about $50 . . . if you can find him. These third party toys aren’t readily available and you’ll need to try sites like TFSource and Big Bad Toy Store if you want to buy them. And that’s if the toys aren’t already sold out (which happens more often than I expected when I first heard about the third party scene).<\/p>\n

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Vehicle Mode<\/strong><\/p>\n

At about 4-inches long, Wheelie’s roughly the size of a small Deluxe Class official Transformers toy. Scout class would have worked better if you want to use Wheelie in your CHUG collection (which is my plan), but those of you who are Masterpiece collectors will find that Wheelie fits in almost perfectly with that scale; see this review at CollectionDX<\/a> for a look at Wheelie with Masterpiece Rodimus Prime. <\/p>\n

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The vehicle mode is clearly Wheelie and looks as good as it can; I’m just not a fan of that bizarre vehicle design. The wheels — complete with rubber tires! — spin . . . but not very well. Don’t expect Wheelie to race across any surfaces.Continue to Page 2…<\/a><\/p>\n

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Robot Mode<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The designers did a great job of compressing Wheelie in his vehicle form and the transformation is simple and easy to follow. Everything locks neatly in place in vehicle mode and with just a moment or two you can transform between modes; the only tough spot if the head which can sometimes take some effort to pop out of the toy’s chest. And once transformed Wheelie’s surprising height — about 5.25-inches tall — clearly demonstrates how well the designers did collapsing everything into that tiny vehicle design.<\/p>\n

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Wheelie has reasonably decent articulation with ball-joints at the neck, shoulders, elbows, hips, wrists, and ankles and hinged knees. The shoulder articulation may as well be simple swivels — the body blocks the movement — and there’s no waist articulation at all, but when compared to the 1986 version of the character this toy is decades ahead in terms of design and quality. The only thing that keeps the articulation from working perfectly (besides the shoulder problem) is the weight; that metal makes balancing the toy a challenge at times.<\/p>\n

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Paint Apps<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wheelie’s colors come mostly from the plastic and metal parts, but where paint detail has been applied — over the rear fenders, rear bumper, and the face — the apps are clean and simple. A sheet of stickers was included with the toy and as soon as I decide which ones I want to use I’ll give Wheelie a bit more color, but since I want to be sure I’m happy with my sticker choices (you get symbols, letters, numbers, and words — far more than you can apply to the toy) I’m waiting until I’ve had a lot of time to decide what I want to use. $50 toys sometimes make you stop and think before you start applying random stickers to random spots.<\/p>\n

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Closing Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wheelie Survivalist is great. Tough, character-accurate, and every bit as cool as I had hoped after playing with the X-Transbots Glider toy (which, word says, was designed by the same person as Wheelie). The heft of the toy is amazing and the classic Generation One design would go perfectly with my CHUG collection if this toy was about an inch to an inch and a half shorter than it is. But even at the larger size I’m very happy with my purchase and will definitely be pointing at this toy whenever anyone asks me for an example of an excellent third party Transformers toy.<\/p>\n

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This one’s recommended if you can find it and if you want an easy-to-transform and attractive version of an annoying character.<\/p>\n

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Check out more from Phil at battlegrip.com<\/a>!<\/center>
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Click here to learn more about the Transforming Collections<\/a> book!<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in July, our first Guest Review Week was a blast! Five great contributors from four great sites all right here at IAT? It was awesome and too fun to only do once! So, \u201cSon of Guest Review\u201d Week kicks off today with the spotlight on one of my favorite toy bloggers, Phil Reed from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[34,10,35],"tags":[1679,1705,1706,2595,2570,1708],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-5rb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":20672,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=20672","url_meta":{"origin":20905,"position":0},"title":"Spotlight: Transforming Collections Toy Reference Book","date":"September 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Phil Reed\u2019s Battlegrip.com is one my favorite toy sites. Phil runs a great site with a unique perspective and a cool mix of reviews of new & old toys (including a strange obsession with FrankenBerry). Phil has a new project, an unofficial Transformers guide that he\u2019s taken to Kickstarter. We\u2019re\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22569,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=22569","url_meta":{"origin":20905,"position":1},"title":"January Review Index Updates & Top Reviews for January","date":"February 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"January saw most of the reviews being posted in the second half, but some higher than expected traffic pushed those later reviews, like Rorschach, Netossa, & the Metal Men, into the top spots for the month. Also check out the latest updates to both the IAT & Battlegrip.com Review Indexes!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21228,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=21228","url_meta":{"origin":20905,"position":2},"title":"September Review Index Update & Top Reviews for September","date":"September 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Another month has come to a close here at IAT and that means it\u2019s time to update the Review Index with our September articles (& to update Battlegrip\u2019s Review Index too). In addition to the updates, I also thought it\u2019d be fun to look back and see what the top\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23065,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=23065","url_meta":{"origin":20905,"position":3},"title":"Top Reviews for Feb & March Review Indexes Updated!","date":"March 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve been on one crazy train since Valentine\u2019s Day and I forgot to post that the Review Indexes for both IAT & Battlegrip.com were updated for February. Oops! Well, they\u2019ve now been updated for March and we can take a quick look at the Top 10 reviews from the last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21336,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=21336","url_meta":{"origin":20905,"position":4},"title":"Review Round-Up (September 24th-30th)","date":"October 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"One thing I\u2019m always looking for with IAT is ways to help draw the toy blogging community a little closer together and this week I was reminded of a former great site that used to have this really cool feature: a weekly round-up of reviews. That\u2019s something that should come\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21432,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=21432","url_meta":{"origin":20905,"position":5},"title":"Review Round-Up (October 1st-7th)","date":"October 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week\u2019s Review Round-Up went over great. It garnered some nice traffic here at IAT and, more importantly, sent plenty of folks off to poke around the other great toy review sites the net has to offer. This week, it's back with a list of reviews from the first week\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20905"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20905"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20922,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20905\/revisions\/20922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}