Phil's
Transformers Sparkabot & Generation 2 Sizzle
and
Masterforce Sparkdash Hotspark
Review

Sparkabot Sizzle

How to tell the car Sparkabots apart part 2: Sizzle's the black one with a long bonnet that's got an engine on top of it & 4 engine pipes up each side. This sort of heavily modified car seems to pop up a lot in American toylines but doesn't have a real life equivalent in the UK. His windows are painted grey, the exhausts silver and the engine is chromed silver - a small piece of chipping on mind reveals it's the same plastic as his robot body underneath.

Transformation: Pull back on the rear of the car and stand with the underside facing towards you. Fold the bonnet back - but be careful as my elderly Sizzle had some gunk in the hinge and the bonnet snapped the first time I moved it. Raise the arms.

Revealed in this mode is his orange robot body with a pale blue face. The head is set into the body so all you've gained by folding the bonnet back is a couple of millimetres off the height. I'd have made the bonnet a fixed moulded piece and raise the level of the head and the turning shoulders a bit.

I'm biased because the bonnet on mine broke but just folded back like that it looks silly in robot mode. Fixing it in place could have improved the robot.

Sizzle was sold in the US and the UK in 1988.

Masterforce Sparkdash Hotspark

In Japan Sizzle was renamed Hotspark. He's had both his moulded plastic and paint operations colours changed:

Black plastic (the car body) becomes Bright Red.
Orange plastic (the robot body) becomes White.
Grey painted windows become Dark Blue.
Silver painted exhausts become Gold painted.
Light Blue painted face becomes Dark Blue.

Red toys usually look good and this is no exception. Great repaint, wish I owned one, far better colours than the original.

Hotspark was sold as Japanese Transformers toy number C-314.

Confusingly there is also a Masterforce Sparkdash Sizzle: he's a repaint of the Firecon Flamefeather!

Generation 2 Sizzle

Where Blaze, the Generation 2 repaint of Sparkabot Fizzle works, Sizzle is a train wreck:

Black plastic (the car body) becomes Clear Yellowy Green.
Orange plastic (the robot body) becomes Pale Blue.
Grey painted windows become Pale Blue.
Silver painted exhausts become Gold painted.
Light Blue painted face becomes Red.
Black Wheels become Purple.

Too many clashing colours. Too much going on. My eyes, my eyes!

The bonnet's missing on my G2 Sizzle, which was a jumble sale find years ago. I had trouble with the bonnet on G1 Sizzle and the clear plastic hinge on G2 Blaze so I suppose it was inevitable there'd be a problem on the toy here.

Interestingly Generation 2 Fizzle has the same colour swap on his tires from his original version. I wonder if this indicates some gang moulding between the two toys and thus why they were released together as G2 toys and Guzzle wasn't?

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