Phil's
Transformers & Generation 2 Protectobot Streetwise,
Operation Combination Streetstar
Review


Streetwise

Streetwise is the Police Car member of the Protectobots. He's an off white police car with a red lightbar over the top of the car and a black spoiler at the rear. In the back of the police car is a 5mm peg hole. This is used for mounting his cannon on via an L shaped connector with a 5mm peg at one end (for the car) and a round clip at the other (for the cannon). The cannon looks a bit odd and does rather dwarf the car. I think Hasbro/Takara missed a trick here: The L shaped connector should have had a 5mm peg hole at the top end and the cannon a 5mm peg allowing it to be used as a hand weapon by Defensor.

Transformation: Fold the back of the car back 180 degrees to form the legs. Fold the front of the car forward 180 degrees to form the body and head. Pull the arms out to the sides. Peg the gun into his hand.

Streetwise's robot mode is tall and thin, very tall for a Scramble City/Special Team limb, his height effectively being twice the length of the car due to the way he unfolds. The only new colour revealed from the front is some red plastic for the legs which is also found on his back, but under the chest we find what is on my version a metal piece but may be plastic on other versions of the toy. We've mentioned his handgun being held in the fist: he's the only Protectobot limb with a forward facing fist hole in robot mode. Sadly there's no way of attaching the vehicle mode cannon in this mode so it forms a useful weapon, a failing shared by his fellow Protectobot First Aid and the Stunticons all of which use similar weapons. His arms move at the shoulders and his legs bend at the knees as part of the transformation but this later joint doesn't have much use as legitimate articulation

If you extend the "older G1 character brought back" analogy to Streetwise - See Hotspot's review for more details - then the most obvious candidate is Prowl.

Streetwise can form a limb to combine with Hotspot to form Defensor or with any of the other Scramble City/Special Team leaders to form a "scrambled" robot.

Arm mode: from car mode remove the weapons, fold the head down under the car to act as the connector and add a fist to the end of the arm. For extra weapons replace the fist with the vehicle's cannon rotated to face outwards.

Leg mode: from car mode remove the weapons, plug a foot in and fold the bonnet backwards. He should now slide on top form the leg but you may need to pull the arms out to the sides to get him to connect without encountering any resistance and then push the arms back in to hold them in place.

Streetwise was Protectobot P1 when he was released in 1986. He was also available in the Defensor giftset. He was released in Japan as Transformers toy C-73 and was available in the C-76 Guardian giftset. His only re-issue was in 1991 as part of the European gold carded classics range.


Streetstar

Streetwise's only released repaint is as Streetstar who was only sold as part of the Operation Combination's TFC-04 Guard City box set which also contains Fire Chief (Hotspot) ), Sparkride (Groove ), 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.

Streetstar is very similar to Streetwise, just having a whiter body and different stickers. If anything the car mode looks closer to Prowl than the original.

Don't bother looking for this, it's one of the big money Transformers sets. Pray that Defensor gets a re-release and this is the E-Hobby repaint.


Generation 2 Streetwise

Streetwise has on famous unreleased version: Generation 2 Streetwise where he would be numbered P4. He would have come out in 1995 as part of the G2 Protectobots in opposition for the G2 Stunticons. Streetwise sports one of the best Generation 2 colour schemes swapping the white for black which changes the car but still keeps the police car theme.

G2 Streetwise has recently had a homage released to him as Botcon Streetstar who uses the Universe Prowl mould further strengthening the link to the original G1 character there.


Future Repaints

If we think that Streetwise could be inspired by Prowl then the obvious choice for a reapint, especially given the spoiler, would be to make the white & black blue and call him Smokescreen.

Our Decepticon police car would have to be a black repaint as Barricade.


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