A famous feature of the original Tracks is it's winged car mode, and there is an attempt to replicate it here. Remove the missiles & fold the doors down to the sides. Swing the doors back, the swing the wing out from the end of the doors. Hmm. Well the tried, but it's obvious that the bulk of the wings is just the blue doors with the white wings, smaller than those on the original, effectively providing just the wing tips.
Transformation: start by folding the wings out as above. Raise then windscreen & roof up, pull the front of the car forwards and then fold the windscreen & roof back down. I had to use some force the first time I did this bit as the front of the car would not extend. Pull the front of the car forward & down and then fold it back so the headlights face up and Track's feet are pointing down. Rotate the front of the vehicle/legs at the waist so the feet point up and the bonnet points down. Fold the rear of the car back,. noting the robot's forearms attached to the inside of the rear with the elbows pushed right the way back, the gun folded up with the hinge pointing towards the front of the car and the open side of the shoulder ball joint facing up. All these details will be useful later when you try to transform him back to car model. Unpeg the arms, straighten them out, fold forward then swing out to the sides, folding the shoulders down. Rotate each arm out 90 degrees at the bicep and then rotate the hands in 90 degrees at the wrists. Fold the rear wheels forward so they're on the front of the arms. Slide each wing out to the sides at the body, then rotate it's attachment to the body up 45 degrees. Remove the gun from the rear of the car and set aside. You don't have to for the next step of the transformation to work but leaving it in will mean that the gun is stored in the robot's backpack. Fold the rear of the back of the car down onto the robot's bottom and lean it backwards. Fold up the grey plate on the inside of the roof of the rear of the car, then fold the top of the rear of the car forward, the tabs on the front of the grey plate recessing into matching holes on the back of the robot's body. Slide the car roof, now serving as the robot's chest, up revealing the robot's head at the top and it's waist at the bottom. Clip each missile onto the bars on the grey plate behind the robot's neck. Fold the gun barrel out to the side and place the gun into the robot's hand.
Track's robot mode looks like a pretty good replica of the original Tracks, albeit one that looks shorter and wider than the original. Position the wings right and they look like they're projecting out behind the wheels on the front of the shoulders rather than mounted on the folded out doors. The head looks pretty accurate in white plastic with a red face and a new dark blue lightpipe and while the missiles are very different from the original and positioned differently they do remind you of the original versions. The arms are thin, but so were the originals. The moulded hands I'm having problems with as this set make it easy for the gun to go in and slip out having slightly too large a gap. However these are the first of the new style hands that I've had this problem with. The articulation is good with turning wrists, double bending elbow, bicep swivel and ball jointed shoulder. The head & waist turn, but the latter is a little limited by the edge of the windscreen hanging down from the bottom of the chest. The hips are ball jointed, there's a swivel immediately above the knee which in turn bends as does the ankle where it meets the leg while the foot is connected to the ankle by a ball joint, with the other side of the ankle connected to the heel spurs formed from the front of the car. While the missiles are nice, the gun doesn't really do it for me. For a start mine won't lock together properly when the barrel is folded out. The look of the thing is wrong too, it's more like a missile launcher with it's rounded silver barrel than the longer gun the original Tracks uses. Yes there's a reason for this but the reason has nothing to do with Tracks and is all about his repaint which we'll look at bellow. The only redeeming feature about the gun is the 3mm clip on the rear.
Decent enough new version of Tracks. Yes the wings could be better and yes we'd like the Firebird but.....
Tracks was released in the first Reveal the Shield wave with Jazz , Mindset & Fallback. In Japan Tracks was part of the second wave of United toys released in January 2011 where he was numbered UN-11 and released with Jazz (again!) and the Voyager sized Grapple & Lugnut. United Tracks features a more metallic blue plastic car body and a firebird logo on the bonnet.
For some reason Reveal the Shield Turbo Tracks' TFU entry has a hidden message behind the picture reading "Will eventually change his name to Sworn Enemy"
Looking at the pictures we have for pre-orders we know this much: Wheeljack is Tracks, but moulded in white with a new head and the legs turned the other way round. The front of the car - heel spurs on Tracks, now the feet - are remoulded, as are the missiles which become tools for Wheeljack to hold while the gun becomes Wheeljack's shoulder cannon, yet more evidence of the cartoon bias shown this year: The original Wheeljack toy has two. I'll just have to steel the gun from Tracks for the other one, it looks rubbish there anyway. For more cartoon bias see also: Speakers on Jazz and the blue Rumble scout toy amongst others.
I'll come back and have another look at Wheeljack when I have him in hand.
Which I now do. The deco on the car mode is fabulous, with Track's blue being swapped for the whitest plastic I've seen on a Transformers toy for many a year with green & red stripes very similar to the Alitalia racing colours seen on the original Wheeljack. The front of the car is considerably longer gaining a narrow projecting edge at the bottom which extends about 7-8 mm in front of the car. The rear of the car now features a spoiler, and if you go back to Track's you'll find a rounded rectangle panel occupying the spot on the rear of the car where the spoiler now sits, secured by a pin that passes through it from the back of the car.
Transformation to robot mode is *nearly* identical except for the waist doesn't get turned. The front of the car become the feet, rather than the heel spurs and the former rather flat feet are now the heel spurs with the front wheels, now attached to the sides of Wheeljack's ankles, folded down beside them.
The most prominent remoulded feature of the robot mode is the head. We get a spot on likeness of Wheeljack's cartoon appearance featuring lightpiped eyes and ears. The fold out wing tips are remolded to resemble Wheeljack's wings. These are now painted silver as is the inside of the door panel serving as a wing giving the illusion of a longer, silver wing piece. Track's gun now becomes Wheeljack's single shoulder cannon and because it doesn't suit Tracks I've stolen his gun to act as Wheeljack's second cannon :-). Track's missiles are completely remoulded with just the C-clip remaining. We now get a silver barrelled handle of 5mm width allowing Wheeljack to hold them as a wrench. However each wrench now feature not one but two 3mm bars: one on the side of the shaft and one on the top next the c-clip but at right angles to it. If the opening on the clip had been in the same orientation as the bar on the end you could have combined them together as a staff. As it is I think they are meant to be used as weapons: There's some indentations on the c-clip end of the wrench making me think that perhaps they're meant to also serve as gun barrels. Wheeljack can store the wrenches when he's not using them: there's a 3mm bar located to the outside of each knee allowing them to sit inside the leg panels or be positioned pointing over the side of the knee as a gun barrel. Wheeljack's an inventor, I can see him trying out knee mounted guns. Turning Wheeljack round you'll see that the panels making up Track's leg fronts are completely gone replaced with a much simpler and plain design that allows the knees to bend in that direction where they were previously locked off by Track's knee pads. They no longer bend the other way thanks to a remoulded slider on the lower leg which also doesn't come up so far making Wheeljack's height a little short than Tracks. Most of the exposed white pieces remain the same colour but the joints that connect the wheels to the shoulders and the wings to the body are now a bright green plastic. I don't know if some minor remoulding has taken place or if it's just that the tolerances are out but I can no longer fold the wheels onto the front of Wheeljack's shoulders like I could with Tracks.
Top, top repaint/remould. I'm putting this as an early entry for toy of the year. It just works far better as Wheeljack than Tracks. That then makes me think is Wheeljack actually the original and Tracks the repaint/remould. I'm forced to conclude that Wheeljack must have come first. The mold suits both his modes better. The missile gun is more Wheeljack than Tracks. The odd shaped ankle with the bar out the side serves a function on Wheeljack but not Tracks. The Tracks feet work better as heel spurs. Yup, as far as I can see Wheeljack is the original.
Wheeljack is a Wave 7 Transformers Generations toy, packed with Thundercracker as well as Kup & Scourge which are carried over from the previous wave. He's due to be carried over into the next Generations wave which introduces Warpath. He is scheduled to be released in Japan at the end of March as Transformers United toy UN-22 alongside the Rumble & Frenzy 2-pack, Scourge & Generation 2 Optimus Prime.
Diaclone Wheeljack meanwhile has a differently coloured version that could be used. Alternator Wheeljack is a repaint of the silver Alternator Grimlock, while Armada Wheeljack gives us a different back colour scheme. Meanwhile Wheeljack's Energon form, Downshift has a Cybertron toy which could give us a green & black version.