Drift is a white sports car similar to the Nissan Silvia S15. Or at least that's what the TF Wiki page says. I'm not a complete petrolhead so I'm not good with my cars. So I look at Drift and think his car mode looks quite a look like Jazz: both are white sports cars with spoilers. Drift however has some red Kanji on his doors reading "Samurai" (the original design had the Katakana for "drift" on the doors). The whole of this mode is white plastic save for the light blue used for the headlights, side & front windows and a sort of dark grey (almost purple) used for the wheels.
Transformation: Separate the bonnet down the middle and fold the halves of the middle section out to the sides covering them up, which in turn reveals the robot's head. Pull the back of bonnet's side panels out to the sides. Move the windscreen forward. Fold the card doors and side windows down to the sides. Fold the roof and the rear of the car back to form the legs then separate them. Fold the feet up & forward till they meet the shins. Fold the arms out from the front wheel arches and rotate each wrist through 180 degrees. From the inside of the doors fold up the sword handles and fold back the windows. Fold the doors down to the sides of the legs as sword sheaths. Swing the arms forward.
Drift's robot mode reveals more of the grey on the hands, upper limbs and body with the chest being covered by some of the car roof and windscreen. His head's great, good proper Transformers style completely unlike the Bayformer stuff that's been served up the last few months. It closely resembles Cheetor so if you look at Tigatron you'll see something very much like and coloured the same as what we have here. The only real difference is that Drift's head is lightpiped in the same pale blue plastic used for his windows. He's well armed in this mode - there's a sword running down the entire length of his back - a 10cm blade and 2cm hilt - that can be removed and held in either hand. Be careful though it's *very* bendable. On each hip he has a sword sheath holding a shorter 4cm sword made of the same bendy plastic. The articulation on the toy is excellent: Ball jointed wrists that rotate and bend inwards, double bending elbow (these are becoming more and more common), a bicep swivel, a shoulder that bends up inside the shoulder pad - this allows you to raise the shoulder pads - formed from the car front wings - up to give Drift tall shoulders. The shoulders themselves are mounted on ball joints which are on a strut that allows them to raise up at the shoulders. The ankles move but that's more part of the transformation, the knees bend, there's a thigh swivel and ball jointed hips. Finally the head can turn and lean backwards.
overall: I'm not held by any comic related prejudice towards the character so I think the toys is rather nice. Decent vehicle, decent articulation and some nice weapons. Well worth a look.
Blurr's car mode uses Drift's car body but swaps the white plastic for light blue, painting the lower part off the car dark blue with a very pale blue wide stripe up the middle, about the width of the main window which is now moulded in a slightly darker blue plastic. The one mould change to this mode of the toy can be found at the rear: Blurr has a new lower & flatter spoiler with rounded rear corners.
Transformation is the same as Drift but the moment you turn the car over you'll see the sword is gone replaced by a long gun approximately 3/4 of the length of the car with the stock concealed under the front of the car.
Robot mode reveals lots of recoloured parts and other modifications. He's got a new head, incorporating design elements from the original Blurr. The sword sheaths - the panel attached to the inside of the door connecting the door to the strut which is attached to the car but not the door itself - are swapped for a larger holster that now holds a hand gun on each side. Although the holsters are wider they're no longer large enough to accommodate the swords, and similarly the guns can't fit into Drift's sword sheaths. Blurr can hold either of the smaller gun or the long gun which has a handle that swings to the side for him to support the gun. All three guns can combine with the two smaller ones fitting into the sides of the barrel of the larger gun to form a long sniper's rifle with the handles of the smaller rifles acting as a support for the weapon to be rested on the ground.
Various parts have been recoloured. As we've already noted the white car body is a pale blue as are the forearms and the new head & weapons holsters. The grey of the upper legs, hands and inner shoulders is a darker blue. The elbows, shoulder joints and the parts attaching the holsters to the body, all formerly grey are now a very pale blue as are the legs, feet & waist plate that were formerly white. Sadly the light pipe has gone from the new version.
See here for some pictures of the new version while the pictures TFW2005 took @ Botcon show the new weapons.
Blurr's a great repaint, modifies the existing Drift mould well. I don't have a problem with Blurr's car mode but the head, complete with several fins on the sides but a very small attachment on top of his head, doesn't do a good job of capturing Blurr's established likeness which I feel was necessary with such a dramatic remodelling of his vehicle mode. The sniper rifle is a little odd with Blurr. The colours used also suit Fizzle, who's G2 repaint Blaze was the Autobot hitman. So I wouldn't be surprised to see a Blaze repaint of this version of the toy show up at some point.