When's the last time I covered a Hot Rod? Well, we've got one now in the Cyberverse line, and in terms of character, he was pretty cool in the series. It's nice to see that for a fully G1-centric series, this guy isn't trying to mimic the 86 nostalgiawank and instead has adventures of his own. I dug seeing him along with Bumblebee and Cheetor, but I also loved having him fight alongside Clobber, Perceptor, Dead End, Whirl, and Soundwave during the Quintesson invasion. As for figures, he has a Warrior figure that looked kind of funny, though I'll be honest and say that this guy really isn't any better...let's review him.
Here we have Hot Rod in his vehicle mode. While I get that it's accurate to the design in the show, the vehicle mode looks too blocky. It's far too reminiscent of the PS1 car models found in games that weren't from Gran Turismo or any higher-quality racing game. Considering how characters like Bumblebee had pretty decent car modes, I felt let-down with Hot Rod's since he ends up looking worse than the G1 version. It's low-poly and could really benefit from a facelift.
The fire clips can be attached to the sides of the car, and while they add some color to help the silver, black, blue, and faint orange paint apps break up the predominantly red body, it's still not enough to make it look better-detailed (there should be silver in front of the spoiler, yellow for the bumper, some gray bordering around the arrows, and especially a flame deco on the hood).
Transformation is pretty similar to the G1 version, with the legs extending, the arms hinging down, and the backpack swiveling up along with the reveal of the spoiler on the back. The robot mode itself...doesn't do it for me. I'll give credit to it by saying that the back does transform in a way that 's kind of neat, but everything else feels pretty basic, and the resulting robot mode looks far too red. In terms of details that should have more paint, he needs some details for the midriff, some headlights for the chest, some black paint for the vents, some added paint for the thighs, yellow for the midriff, and some paint for the shins. I say that because man is the red too prominent.
Head sculpt is a stylized take on the G1 guy, and the face is nicely painted despite the eyes being somewhat incomplete. His articulation is similar to that of Grimlock's (and by extension, most of the WFC line), though he has double-jointed elbows, wrist swivels, and slightly hampered shoulder movement.
The fire pieces can be attached on his arms once again and make him look ready to burn Decepticons on fire like the Human Torch! While he may need a gun, that actually makes him a little more unique compared to most Transformers in the show. He comes with the right leg of Maccadam, which has some articulation at the knee. As for Hot Rod himself, he's not too great and is my least favorite of the Cyberverse Deluxe line so-far. Between the lack of paint, the hinderances made from the design, and the feel of the toy, I don't think he's one you really need unless you're a Hot Rod fan, want to complete the Cyberverse line, or want to paint him up yourself.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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