Incinerator's dragster mode plugs in the back and deploys the side of the car into a sort of jet mode. If you've got a gimmick on a toy with a Minicon surely (where possible) the Minicon should be used to activate it ? A live Minicon socket on the top of the car would have done the job just as well. When the wings are deployed you find there are two missile launchers are on each wing - in this mode the orange missiles can be fired by attaching a minicon. In car mode they sit sticking out from under the spoiler with insufficient clearance to fire which is frustrating because the two (dead) hardpoints on top of the car look like they should cause the missiles to launch. Factor these all together and it fells to me like there's some confusion in the design here.
The canopy at the front folds up but I'm not wonderfully sure why it's spring loaded..... The only point it's used is the first step in the TF, where you fold the legs down from the back of the vehicle, raising the head under the canopy. The lower legs pull down and from the end of them the feet and the heel spurs fold out. The panels at the side of the passenger compartment fold down the sides of the robot, then the back of the car becomes a backpack. The front of the car separates - the outer halves need to be raised up slightly before they are folded back to form HUGE shoulder pads while the insides of the bonnet halves fold down to form arms and hands.
In robot mode a lot more blue is revealed on he robot chest (with a nice red Autobot smbol moulded in the middle of it), shoulders, and legs which is more reminiscent of G1 Blurr. The upper arms are both moulded in orange, while the feet, heel spurs, upper legs and waist plate are dark blue. The huge backpack can either be left as the car or a with the wings deployed as a sort of jet pack. It's a bit difficult to insert Incinerator in this mode as the socket is pointing down - once again would a Minicon post to activate the wings have been a better idea ? You'll need to open the backpack up at some stage to remove each of the missile launchers from the wings. He's got no fist holes in the hands or hard points on the forearms - just 2 indentations maybe 6 1/2 mm across and 1 1/2 mm deep which match a similar pair of non standard shallow pegs on the missile launchers so he can use the missile launchers but can't hold or use any minicon weapons unless you can peg them on top of the existing launchers - a sin I feel on any Armada to and sadly one that's repeated all too often. Not a lot of leg movement - so I suppose in that respect he's once again similar to the original Blurr. The legs swing out to the side of the hips and there's a ball joint bellow the hips that allows the legs to rotate (as the arms would on a bicep joint) but it will also (if sufficient force is applied) allow them to bend back just below the hips too. However he's nice and stable due to some fold out feet and heel spurs. The arms swing out to the sides and have a double bending elbow which I always like to see. Head's quite good, with lots of transparent plastic, looks very like a racing drivers helmet.
Blurr's Japanese name is Silverbolt and was available together with Turbo (Incinerator) as MC-08. They also were in MS-05 with the Street Speed Team.
Both Swerve and his Minicon Roadhandler look superb in these colours in car modes casting the image of super advanced Ferraris or Lamboghinis. There's a big G1 Sideswipe vibe from them, which can only be a good thing. Flip down wing gimmick is intact and works fine from the box - unlike my Galaxy Force Blurr that needed a little surgery to correct a misaligned spring.
Swerve's robot mode again looks superb in red and black - and the sports racing helmet looks great picke out in black and silver. Some silver and (to a lesser extent) yellow paint ops are revelealed by the tf - the yellow is a bit see through and smudgy which doesn't matter on Swerve, but is a bit more obvious on Roadhandler's chest. Should have stuck to just black there.
Overall ? Best Universe repaint !
As far as I can see Blurr's gained a new top at the rear, lost Incinerator's socket - now replaced with a force chip slot and had his head replaced with something reminiscent of original Blurr's head. His guns have been remoulded too loosing the round tabs that fitted the wrists and gaining a small handle that he can hold. The missiles which these use are remoulded in a dark grey. Lots of Blue in the colour scheme - as well as what was originally light blue all the silver is as well now - whereas the orange on the body has become a pale grey - and some translucent plastic is used in odd places for what was the darker blue.
Looks very nice, but there's a misplaced spring on one side of mine.
Blurr comes with a Speedia/Speed Planet chip.
Very nice repaint, not pure black in robot mode but a good balance of darker colours,
The Shattered Glass boxset also contained Sideswipe & Whisper (Armada Wheeljack & Windshear) and Rampage (Classics Minicon Snarl)