In the WFC trilogy, the Autobot Cars were gradually added in each line, which especially rang true for most of the 84 guys. Ignoring the addition of Earth mode repeats for each character, we had quite the number of additions for Siege before we had fewer additions for Earthrise and Kingdom to make room for said Earth mode repeats. Studio Series 86 not only added Jazz into the line-up after his absence but also included the 1986 trio of Autobot Cars. One such character who tends to be forgotten at times due to his lack of main appearances for G1 was Skids, who did receive a new figure in 2013 based on his appearance in the IDW comics. Apart from the restrictive shoulders and the questionable ball joint durability for the thigh swap, that figure seemed good enough for anyone with a WFC display until Legacy showed up and gave us a more traditional figure of Skids around the same time the Masterpiece got attention. So let's see if this guy is worth adding to the impressive WFC Trilogy line-up.
Here is Skids in his vehicle mode, depicting him in the typical boxy compact hatchback that the G1 toy took form of (though better resembling a Honda City Turbo). It's a fairly cute looking vehicle, helps him stand out from the other Autobots who are more sleek, sporty, or more explorative in the case of Ironhide, Hound, and Trailbreaker, but if we're being honest, this guy feels more like a normal robot in disguise apart from his insignia. This does sound like a nitpick, but I don't like how the decals on the side suddenly stop when you reach the doors.
The one issue I have with this figure is that the roof does not line up properly with the back of the vehicle, which is possibly a material reason with the two parts having no good tolerances between each other. I tried tabbing it in properly once and the doors slightly dislodged the roof. At the very least, the panel lining for the toy is respectful and not something egregious like Universe Ironhide. As for the difference in tires, they're both pinned, but one is actually using a mushroom peg for the front tires.
All of the weapons have spots they can be stored in, though you can combine all of Skids' weapons to form a multi-barreled weapon of mass destruction made from his Energon axe, a liquid nitrogen rifle, and a twin electron blaster. It's neat that they carried over the multi-weapon schtick from the WFC trilogy even if Kingdom downplayed it somewhat.
For a size comparison, here he is with Kingdom's couple in the form of Inferno and Red Alert. The former was way undersized to accommodate his accuracy and robot mode height while the latter scales pretty well with the Legacy Autobot Car with no issue. Also, this is a pretty patriotic color combo with the blue added and we're getting close to Memorial Day as of this writing.
Transformation is pretty straightforward, as you make the front the chest, pull out the arms, untab the doors, straighten the legs, and put the roof on the back. I guess it's something I don't mind, and the way the legs work is kind of cool even if they come at the cost of hollow inner legs. The wheels being underneath the feet of the robot mode is pretty neat, especially when one would initially expect them to be left untouched. The robot mode does feel pretty blocky, and probably moreso than Earthrise Hoist. The lack of definition for the robot mode does make him look less impressive than his WFC buddies, and even Sunstreaker's square chest and the body type of Hoistbreaker have some form of definition. I mean, it's fine for the legs, but the chest does feel pretty plain, which I guess helps him since he's not a particularly flashy robot.
Head sculpt looks great from the front, and it does have some nice paint for the face as well as baby blue eyes to stand out from the rest of him, but why did they have to add part of the vehicle mode on the back of the head? It's kind of like a weird solution to what older Transformers used to have where there'd be a flap behind the head and it ruins the silhouette of the figure, but this kind of makes him look blocker than he really needed to be. His articulation is consistent with the WFC trilogy, which is always a treat. The head is on a ball joint, shoulders move front and back as well as in and out, the biceps swivel, the elbows bend, the wrists swivel, the waist rotates, the hips move front and back, in and out, the thighs swivel, the knees bend (with weirdly distracting hinges that are made up from the vehicle mode, and the ankles can pivot. Depending on your copy, the shoulder hinges may cause the parts for the transformation to move higher or lower than expected.
As far as his weapons are concerned, he can hold his gun as normally (though it does look a little blocker than it should be on his hand), while the twin-barrel blaster can peg on his forearm (though it goes in a little deeper than expected, in addition to being kind of annoying to remove from its spot). The axe can be held with an additional handle that allows the blaster barrel from looking like how it should for the gun mode. These Legacy clear weapons are pretty neat, and I do hope we get new ones to stand out from what's already established. At the very least, they make for neat bonus weapons while the regular weapons are left intact.
As far as reuses are concerned, we only have Burn Out as part of the Velocitron Speedia 500 Collection, which comes with a new alternate head, shoulder paint apps, and a black deco, but is otherwise the same as Skids.
Another Diaclone homage, this one being Crosscut. He showcases not just a nice silver coat of paint, but also a sign of how weird the gang-molding can get with the hands now being accurately red at the cost of the wheels being red. It is a mostly easy swap to do if you get a spare Skids and simple gove this guy the black tires by disconnecting the front ones from the mushroom pegs and the back ones with the hinge that has no pin.
For a robot mode size comparison, he scales with any other Autobot Car as he should, being more or less the same height as Red Alert and being shorter than Inferno. As for my final thoughts on Skids, he's a decent figure. While a downgrade from the overall quality of Deluxes in the WFC trilogy in terms of engineering and handling, he's not a really awful figure and at least does his job alright as the blue Deluxe of the first wave (something that can't really be said for Arcee since she's a disappointment I chose to skip). At the very least, he may not look as cool as the T30 version, but he does have better synergy and no ball joint fragility.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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