Phil's
Gobot Gearhead, Soundwave & Greasepit
and
Spychanger Wars & W.A.R.S.
Review
Gearhead is a yellow car, with a Red firebird logo outlined on the bonnet with the words Stockbird by Transformers on it. There's vertical bar over the front and back windows so I'm guessing he must be used for some form of stock car racing. The undersides to the front & back are red and the main body is a smoked clear colour.
TF: Most of the Gobots/Spychangers - all the ones originally designed for G2 - have the G1 Sideswipe Transformation. Pull the back of the car back, fold down the bonnet under the front of the car. Pull the arms out to the sides.
The yellow is carried over to the body armour & back of the robot mode with clear red lower legs and a smoked clear body & head. The logo is now on the robot's chest. In robot mode he gains a black gun - different to all the other colours used in the car's construction.
Overall: Not the worst Spychanger
Here the yellow becomes a neon lime yellow - yuck - the clear red becomes blue and the clear becomes purple. The firebird logo becomes a T shape with the word Transformers written over the top.
Not a great recolour. Soundwave isn't Yellow, and this isn't a good Yellow. Dark Blue instead of yellow would have worked well.
The "Solid Head" Gearhead has 2 changes to the original. The body & head go from being clear to silver - the same as Blowout's car shell did when he became Megatron. The lower leg fronts/car front & back undersides go from clear red to solid red - just like Firecracker's body did when he became Optimus Prime. This can be seen as the most compelling evidence that these Gobot molds share parts and that this variation cam about when Optimus & Megatron Gobots were created.
The Japanese version of Soundwave swaps the blue - used for Gobot Sideswipe's body - for solid Red - used on Optimus Prime's. Worst of the Gobot paint jobs.
As with many G2 toys we eventually come across an undreleased variant for Gearhead. Greasepit would have been a Gearhead cast in yellow, black & red plastic with all the yellow of the car shell painted in green and then largely covered in blue and white decals.
Greasepit would have been the pack in figure with the Gobot's racing rig - a monster truck. The back of this folded back in half to create a long ramp off which the Gobot cars could be launched.
Greasepit was shown at an early TF convention in the 90s and subsequently photos appeared in toy magazines but he was never released.
When it came to the Car Robots release the Gearhead and Firecraker molds basically swapped colours: Wars gains a red car body and yellow underside to the front & back with a black robot body. There's Japanese characters on the bonnet which I'm told mean war, and the word Wars is written on the doors in the Beast Wars font. The gun becomes clear.
Wars is Car Robots toy C-007 and also appears in the Spychanger giftset C-011.
Like Firecracker/Eagle Killer the join between body and car switches mold colours in this mode - it goes from being the same colour as the lower leg fronts to the same colour as the body. I suspect that the pieces were simply swapped between the two molds at this point.
Clear Wars swaps the red & black for clear red and makes the yellow clear. Nice repaint.
W.A.R.S. is the same as Car Robots Wars with the addition of a small Autobot symbol on the roof. W.A.R.S. is an acronym for Wicked Attack Recon Sportscar.
There is a variation in the packaging of W.A.R.S. with Crosswise. In version 1 W.A.R.S. is in robot mode and Crosswise in vehicle mode, whereas in version 2 both are in vehicle mode.
Clear W.A.R.S. renders all solid three colours used on this toy for their clear counterparts. Nice version.
Tiny Tin W.A.R.S. is RID W.A.R.S. with the addition of a small matchbox size & style tin.
Super Wars makes the car body off white (with hideous green windows), the car front & back undersides dark blue and the robot body white. The gun becomes clear green.
Not a bad repaint but not as appealing as the original CR Wars.
Clear Super Wars is the paint from Super Wars on a car/robot that uses only plain clear plastic. Clear repaints need more colour to their plastic than this !
Clear W.A.R.S. recolour is much better - clear purple on the car body, the car front & back undersides become clear orange and the robot body plain clear. Much more like it !
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