Phil's
Protectobot & Generation 2 Groove
and
Operation Combination Sparkride
Review

Protectobot Groove

Groove is a first for Transformers: he's a motorcycle. He's mainly white, with silver chromed sides and black plastic used to make the wheels, handlebars and seat. His windshield is white plastic dressed up with stickers. He has solid 5mm pegs sticking out of each side of the saddle bags. On these pegs can be mounted his twin vaporators which move up & down.

Transformation: Fold the saddle back 270 degrees, split in two down the middle and push to each side to form the feet. Stand with the underside facing you. Turn the windshield & front wheel round 180 degrees so the wheel is down the robot's back. Pull the head forwards and raise the arms. Pivot the vaporators to point forward and place his photon pistol into the side of his hand.

Groove's robot mode is pretty solid for a motorbike, even though his articulation is limited to just the shoulders. I love the side cannons on the feet, not all the Scramble City/Special Team combiner limbs can bring their vehicle weapons over to use in robot mode in this way.

Onto our "Which original Autobot toy is this Protectobot most like?" challenge. See Hotspot's review for details. Well we're a little stuck here as there's no original Autobot motorcycle. So I'll take my inspiration here from the name and say that Groove makes me think of Jazz. This has the advantage that both are white and as a bonus there's an unreleased Generation 2 Laser Cycle Jazz. So I'm comfortable with this small leap. Just wait till you see who I think Blades is!

Groove has the ability to become a limb for Defensor or any robot formed from Special Team/Scramble City components.

Arm Mode: Fold the front wheel back, fold the head right the way forward to form a connector under the vehicle. Fold the front wheel back. Plug a hand into the hole in the end of the saddle. Defensor's instructions show Groove without his cannons but I like to leave them on to give Defensor some wrist cannons.

Leg Mode: Fold the front wheel back and then swing through 180 degrees so the wheel is on the front of the saddle. Plug a foot into the hole at the rear of the saddle. Again Defensor's instructions picture Groove with the weapons removed but again I'd leave them on and have them pointing forward.

A decent first attempt at a motorcycle.

Groove was released in 1986 as Protectobot P2 and was also part of the Defensor giftset. He was released in Japan as Transformers toy C-74 and was also in the C-76 Guardian giftset. Groove's one re-release to date was as one of the gold carded European Classics in 1991.

Operation Combination Sparkride

Groove's sole released repaint was as Sparkride who was only sold as part of the Operation Combination's TFC-04 Guard City box set which also contains Fire Chief (Hotspot), Streetstar (Streetwise ), Fly-up (Blades ) & Safety (First Aid ). TFU is at the moment very deficient when it comes to Guard City and it's components. The best photos of this rare toy can be found in Maz's Guard City Article

Apart from the stickers, Sparkride seems to be identical to Groove.

Generation 2 Groove

Groove has an unreleased version as Generation 2 Protectobot P3 Groove. He is re-coloured in typical Generation 2 fashion (IE Horribly!) with the white becoming orange while the black of the saddle and handlebars becomes green with the wheels & weapons staying black.

Horrible. One of the worst G2 repaint colour versions. The red on the card art looks much better.

Future Repaints

If we're looking to repaint him as a different Autobot then why not take our inspiration from the nice looking Generation 2 Groove Card Art, make him red & black and call him Road Rocket. A Decepticon version would then be painted black as Road Pig.

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