Phil's
Spychanger Prowl 2 & Prowl
Review
Prowl is one of the four unreleased G2 Gobot molds that were resurrected for Robots In Disguise. There are two other unreleased molds, pictures of which are on my Spychangers page. These six new Spychangers have one significant advance over their predecessors: Their guns can be stowed away in vehicle mode. This sets a precedent that would last through till Transformers Animated broke ranks in 2008.
G2 "Prowl" was photographed at a Japanese toy show in 2006 on a Gobot Highbeam card. The car has a blue front & rear with a white middle - no photos exist of the robot mode molded in the colours.
Prowl is important in that he represent a continuation of Hasbro's policy introduced in Beast Machines to do toys of characters in different sizes. Since BM they appear to have realised larger versions are a mistake and now concentrate on smaller ones. This policy will eventually lead to the Legends line.
Here they picked an unused Spychanger mold close to Prowl's larger form. Because all Police cars are the same shape right ? Wrong ! Prowl is shaped nothing like Car Brother Mach Alert/Prowl. This is a much more traditional US police car in Prowl's colours - mainly with blue stripe detailing added. Turning it over we find the front (front of robot legs) & the back of the underside are black while the middle (robot body & head) is yellow (a unique colour use in these four new Spychangers)
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. Detach the gun from between the legs and place in his hand.
Again the similarities are spoiled by the head - yellow, with a black face plate.
Nice try at a smaller version but could do a lot better now if they were asked to do a Spychanger Prowl in the Legends line. Come to think of it they could have done better then if they'd have used the Gobot Firecracker mold !
Prowl 2 comes packaged with Sideswipe.
Prowl
Freed of the need to resemble the RID Prowl this Spychanger fairs better in this 2004 KB exclusive release. The white stays with some new black patterning on the car. The black on the underside stays too but the yellow of the body is gone replaced by grey which is more in tune with the rest of the colours used and gives a much better looking head.
As with the Universe Ironhide (packaged with Ultra Magnus) this Prowl (which comes with Optimus Prime) isn't what it says on the box. We have the same basic plastic colours as the Prowl repaint above but this time with red Fire Chief stickers on. He's obviously Red Alert and quite a good one at that !
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