Phil's
Armada, Universe & Cybertron Downshift
and
Micron Legend Spin & Tailslide
Review

Downshift

From the original Race Team Review: "Downshift looks a bit silly with huge arms and this time it's light blue paint all over the face. "

Unlike his team mate Mirage, Downshift is a new mold, a Formula Racer car (according to the source I looked at !) He's mainly dark grey with some yellow on his rear spoiler but if you turn him over there's a small light grey square underneath making him the only toy in the set to feature all three of the colours used for this Minicon team. He has a number 3 on his bonnet & sides.

He has one minicon port on the underside of him. His best use as an add on is to imagine him as a power pack or armour

TF: Pull the sides of the back of the car out to each side. Fold the middle of the rear under the car and split it to form the legs. Fold the sides of the back down to form arms and flip the head up.

Oh dear. Oh dear. Horrible straight legs with miniscule movement at he hips. The arms fair better because they have a ball joint and a bending joint at the shoulder but then there's nothing bellow that and they stretch down to where his knees would be. The face of the robot is entirely blue with no painted detail.

OK as a car and add on but supremely bad a robot !

Downshift forms the top of the Sky Boom shield

Downshift was also available in Transformers Universe packed with a Tiny Tin storage case.

In Japan Downshift was named Spin and available in Micron Legend pack MM-05 and in giftset MS-02 with Grap (Grapple - the Japanese Version of Smokescreen)

Road Assault Downshift

The race team were repainted in 2003 as the Road Assault team but retained their original names. In this version yellow becomes red, light grey becomes black and dark grey becomes white

Downshift looks very bright in this form as most of his body is now cast in white plastic ! The robot face is improved - it's painted orange but now features yellow eyes too.

In Japan the Road Assault team were an exclusive to Ito Yokado.

Dimension-X Spin

During Micron Legend limited edition repaints of the Minicon teams were released under the Dimension-X label but within the Micron Legend numbering system. The Dimension-X Race Team are numbered MM-10. For this release yellow becomes white, the light grey becomes blue and the dark grey becomes light blue.

Decent car, but the robot is a little spoiled by a red face & other paint ops where a different colour (white ?) might have helped to complement the mold colours.

DVD Tailslide

In 2003 the Race team were the second set of Minicons to be given away with the Japanese Micron Legend DVDs. Unlike the Street Speed Team which all appeared with volume 1 these were given away at the rate of one per volume with volumes 2 to 4.

Tailslide is a recolour of Spin that appears in volume 4. The yellow becomes black, the light grey becomes purple and the dark grey becomes green.

Green & purple do not mix and that's all I'll say about Tailslide as a car or robot. See the Magnawing section of the Skyboom shield review for further comments on this matter !

Micron Booster Spin

The Race team appear in Micron Booster V0. They are very similar to the original race team, except the plastic has some metallic flake added to it - I can't see it myself.

Change Micron Spin

The Change Micron Race team were available in the second set of Change Micron toys with the Space Team. Essentially these are the same as the original Race team but Spin looses the numbering on the bonnet & sides.

Cybertron Minicon Downshift

In 2006 the Race team were released as an exclusive to Wal-Mart. Downshuift was packed with a Tiny Tin and either Cybertron Thundercracker or Cybertron Dirtboss (surely it would have been more appropriate to pack Minicon Dirtboss with Deluxe Dirtboss ?). This release is effectively a promotion for the start of the Cybertron Minicon VS packs.

For this release yellow becomes red, the light grey becomes white and the dark grey becomes a dark blue/black.

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