Huffer's vehicle mode is a truck as per the original but he's gone from being an orange flat fronted truck with a dark blue flatbed to being a more mustard yellow (think Combaticon Swindle) all over and having a long nose like many modern Optimus Prime toys. The bonnet of the toy is painted bright orange and this stands out as it's the only time this colour appears on the toy, it doesn't match the rest of the toy and only serves to remind you what colour the toy should have been. Resting on the back of the flatbed is a black plinth with a Minicon port on top of it. I've not got the other toys to hand to check but it *might* reach far enough back & up to connect with the trailers for Armada Overload and Optimus Prime. This flatbed Minicon post is used for mounting Caliburst's vehicle weapons mode. The gun will fit on either way round and can be rotated when mounted. Sticking out the back of the vehicle are two Power Core combiner cubes: A little imagination and you can think of these as boosters for the vehicle mode.
Transformation: remover the Minicon. Lift the black plinth up off the flatbed: it contains the hands which are holding onto two posts on the flatbed. Separate the flatbed and the cab in two then, fold each half forward so they lock into the sides of the bonnet. Fold the Power Core blocks back to form heel spurs, separate the flatbed in two down the middle to form the legs and stand with the underside facing you. Fold the arms down to the sides from the shoulders and rotate at each elbow so the hands face front. Flip the head up from the top of the chest.
The G1 Huffer theme broadly shows through on the robot mode: mustard yellow legs with a painted blue body (over the mustard yellow), silver arms and a visored head - sadly not light piped but painted in silver. Gone is any structure behind the head be it the rounded shape of the animation model or the more sensible square of the toy. Articulation is decent in this mode: bending knee, swivel jointed thigh, universal hips, ball jointed shoulders bending upper elbow and ball jointed lower elbow joints. My biggest complaint about this mode is the hands: no 5mm peg holes of any kind, which means he can't hold any Minicon weapons let alone Chopster which needs a 5mm hole through the hand. If they'd have made the hands with 5mm peg holes then the pegs on the back of the legs could have been extra Minicon posts. Ok, not a lot of use there but.... To me this is a big fail on a line that involves Minicon compatibility. His chest features the same fold up Minicon peg as other Powercore 2-pack commanders: this allow him to attach Caliburst in armour mode to his chest. Caliburst's prescribed armour mode is a little lop sided with the gun mounted on one side of the armour but you can also mount his vehicle weapons mode on the chest for amore symmetrical look with the gun in the middle. Be careful to mount it with the gun at the top of the chest though: the other way round places the gun at waist level and allows it to move in an arc from pointing straight down to pointing straight up which is a little bit on the phallic side....
Huffer can also form the core of a combined robot: From robot mode fold the forearms up at the elbows over the front of the upper arms. Bring the elbows forward slightly so the arms are at a slant and the slots on the forearms fit the tabs on the top of the chest's sides. Fold the Power Core cubes out of the shoulders. Fold each leg out to the side at the ankle, then bend the leg at the now exposed sideways joint bellow the knee so that peg on the side of the silver part of the leg goes into the hole in the top of the pipe projecting from the yellow part of the leg. Fold the second set of Power Core cubes down from the back of each leg. Fold the smaller robot head down onto the top of the chest. Fold back the orange panel on the back, fold out the combined mode head then fold the back panel up putting the head onto the shoulders. Attach limbs of choice, but if you've only got the first wave 5-packs you'll probably be using the Combaticon drones ;-)
Huffer's combined robot mode has some nice features including a head modelled on Stunticon Menasor and some nice sloped panels at the front of the shoulders formed from the back of the smaller robot's forearms/plinth on the truck flatbed. One side has the Minicon post on it allowing you to mount Caliburst as a weapon there. The other side is a blank black panel - maybe an Autobot symbol there would be nice. The articulation is a problem though: The shoulders turn and move up and down which is fine. The new knees bend and Power core cube (and thus the drone leg) rotate bellow the knees. Unfortunately the old robot knees still operate and for some reason the hips are a lot looser than they were for the smaller robot, probably due to bearing the extra weight of the drone limbs. This means it's very difficult to get the combined mode to stand upright without any support. I like the new head with it's Menasor homage and clear blue light pipe eyes, but unfortunately the back panel it folds out of doesn't fold flat against the back in this mode.
Decent truck mode, ok robot but with the caveat that the hands don't have 5mm peg holes. Decent looking torso mode, but with balance issues when linked to drones.
Crankcase is a black repaint of Huffer: The yellow of the cab and the silver grey becomes black while the flatbed and the black of the hip becomes grey. Pale blue details are added to the vehicle bringing Robots in Disguise Scourge to mind as well as Cybertron Armorhide's repaint Movie Armorhide. Unfortunately both robot heads remain the same - a remould would have easily given us a Power Core Scourge. The clear blue in the combined robot's light pipe becomes clear green, which is the same colour swap applied to Huffer's Minicon, Caliburst, now named Darkray and packed with Windburn, a repaint of Skyburst. The combined robot does now have a fraction symbol on it's shoulder - honestly, I didn't know that when I wrote the Huffer passage, I've just spotted it now !
Decent black repaint, but the repainted Drones are a disappointment when we were expecting more car like Stunticons.