It's Saturday 24th of Jan an my Energon Prowl is here. I got one off an EBay auction, it's loose but complete with all weapons and detailing. How the person I bought it off had 10 loose I'll never know.
Prowl is a race car, police sirens built into the rear spoiler. The car is quite square for a race car - 9 x 13 cm. Quite chunky. The dominant colour is a dark blue, but a bit lighter than RID Super Prowl. The word police is stencilled on the car a few times, as is some Japanese text and a Powerlinx Cog all in silver. He's got a clear blue missile launcher which pegs into holes either side of his cockpit. It's meant to be standard size but it's a tight fit and to my eye the post looks a little wide and stumpy.
To TF to robot pull the sides away to form the arms - everything from backwards of the front wheels hinges back at the behind the rear wheels which become the shoulders - then fold the sides down at the axle of the rear wheel to form the arms. 90 degree outward turn halfway at each side to form the forearms and flip the hands out. Fold both halves of the cockpit cover fwd, pull the front of the car forward exposing the legs, bend the spoiler at the front forward to form the feet and fold back the heel spurs. Slide the rear spoiler forward a bit and flip the head up.
Our resulting robot is 15cm high by 10 across at the shoulders. Nice levels of articulation: arms raise at shoulders, lots of jointing at the elbow, wrists up and down, just below the hips and at the knees. There's also some sideways action at the hips and further up his body due to the PL action. Again quite chunky. Face looks a lot like the original Prowl, but with black horns instead of the metallic red. The head has 2 exhaust pipes sticking out the side, which can be removed. Fists have the standard size peg holes so he can hold all the Energon and Minicon weapons (including his minicon namesake) - but see previous comments about the missile launcher on mine - and the 2 holes mentioned earlier are now mounted on the outside of his elbows. No minicon ports on the toy.
Body Mode: (from robot) fold the feet down and heel spurs in to form the hands. Bend the head onto the back and reverse the direction it's facing. Fold the shoulders up behind the head. Fold the arms back up so they're as the sides again - the cradback has them as backpack/shoulder pad type things. Bend the legs back beneath the head, and fold up the revealed panel. Pull the chest piece 90 degrees forward, and then rotate 180 degrees around it's base, so it now covering the inside of the old robot's thighs. Position arms. This should give you a very nicely articulated body with all the arm movement you want. And slightly too long arms. So you could retract the forearms but that'll leave you with the elbow being only just below the shoulder, and this seems to be what the cardback indicates you should do. I don't have Rodimus - his intended partner - yet, but I can try him with Inferno and Hotshot. Inferno works OK as a pairing - there's an emergency vehicle theme here. Hotshot gives you more articulation on the legs - see the Energon Deluxe wave 1 review - but makes the combined body look a tad too tall.
Leg Mode: (from robot)fold the head back on it's hinge so it's sticking back and up from the head. Fold the shoulders up over where the head is, fold the arms up so they're the sides of the car and position to taste. Fold the legs back from where they are attached to the body and stand. Fold the panel on the waist down and position the chest plate - it can either be a chest plate or a loin cloth to taste. This gives you a good pair of legs with again plenty of articulation. With Hotshot he looks tall and a bit spindly. Inferno makes him look even taller, and is slightly out of proportion with the arms. I tried Prowl with the Mega toys but couldn't get a combination I liked, with the addition of the extensions on Prowl's legs collapsing under the weight of Ironhide.
Overall: Nice chunky dlx figure by himself, and a good addition to the dlx size combiners.
Prowl was available in Japan as Superlink toy SC-11 Red Alert.
Both toys in the SWAT team maintain weapons in their original Energon colours.
I've never been a huge fan of PL Prowl as the arms feel too long, but Rodimus as feet is as ever very good. Powerlinx Checkpoint emphasises the G1 Prowl Look by adding the guns to either side of Prowl's head, though the rest of Checkpoint's half of the form is somewhat lacking in details. Prowl's legs look too spindly again....
Overall quite a nice set with a theme to the repaints ad some G1/Brave hommage thrown in.
Prowl was one half of the K-Mart exclusive SWAT Team set with Checkpoint.