Here we have Gears in his vehicle mode. It's a more updated take on the dumpy, hard-to-identify G1 truck mode, with the overall designing now resembling the GMC Topkick that Ironhide used in the movies. It's not too bad of an unintended homage, but I have to admit that the proportions are still pretty odd. The wheels are either undersized or are too far apart from the rest of the body. The sides of the truck are also unfocused, with that will obviously become the arms having those parts and the round hinges they're attached to. At the very least, the windows are appropriately baby blue like in the cartoon, and the rest of the paint apps are applied smoothly. It's just the truck mode that suffers from looking rough.
The reason why the wheels are like this is because of where the wheels attach for robot mode, as the back wheels will be within the chest while the front wheels will be within the backpack. It doesn't justify the bad aesthetics of the truck mode, but at least there is an explanation. Also, the gun being pegged on the sides flows decently.
Of note, the back of the altmode has the chest of the robot mode on the back. It's also due to the way the transformation works, and while I have seen people complain about the way it's stored on there, but I could honestly care less because I didn't have many high expectations for a character like Gears.
For a vehicle mode size comparison, he fits in pretty well with the other Minibots, with his truck mode being a comparable size to that of Kingdom Huffer. I bet that if Gears came out in the Kingdom line, he would have had translucent plastic compared to the use of opaque plastic on a majority of G1 characters like on SS86 Brawn. I know the recently revealed SS86 Bumblebee will have solid black windows instead of being either opaque blue or translucent blue like Netflix Bee. And in some ways, the shadow accidently cast over Gears somewhat is a reminder that his altmode sucks compared to his fellow Minibots.
Transforming him is fairly easy, as it's a more involved take on the usual trend of the front becoming the upper body while the back flips out to be come the legs. The only interesting aspect is the way the front of the robot is formed, with the tires folding inside the chest while the flap and arms tab in place. Even the back wheels are out of sight, with them being what connects the backpack to the torso. Gears's robot mode is sunbow accurate to a tee, what with how simple his sculpted details are on top of how clean the car kibble overall is. I like how it turned out, especially since it fits with the barrel-chested look that the character design has. His proportions aren't as stylized as the Thrilling 30 Legends guy, and while he doesn't have the wheels visible in his limbs, there are subtle hints of them on the shoulders that should be painted black, but they are blue because cartoon accuracy. His backpack is huge, but the look of it isn't as annoying as the occasional tendency for it to untab given how weak the mushroom peg slits are.
His head sculpt is blocky yet accurate, and the face looks like a chubbier version of Brawn's with a hint of Juggernaut in both the shaping and the fact that he has a red dome. Well, there is a helmet over a helmet, but it looks more like the headgear Spongebob wears whenever he's doing karate with Sandy. His articulation consists of a ball jointed neck, shoulder rotation, outward arm movement, bicep rotation, double-jointed elbows, wrist rotation, waist rotation, universal hip joints for moving front and back as well as in and out, thigh rotation, hinged knees, and ankle pivots. He even has some butterfly joints in the shoulders thanks to transformation!
The back of his head has what is supposed to be an homage to the Micro Change toys, or it might have been meant to reference the canceled Mysterians line that might be the origin for him, Brawn, Huffer, and Windcharger. But I dunno, it's not an M that is on the back of his head, so maybe he found out he was set to M for Mini when he should instead be set to W for Wumbo! Oh, and the chest can open up to homage the aforementioned focus episode, though his inner machinery is unpainted. Of note, the box image above this post may be a preliminary packaging product shot since it turns out the panel is not attached in-box because of the possibility of theft being a thing...which means we REALLY need to have closed-window boxes ASAP.
For a robot mode size comparison, here he is with his fellow Minibots (minus Cliffjumper because of his similar design to Bumblebee. I can happily say I am liking the way the Minibots are turning out, even with their slight difference in aesthetics. Gears is pretty neat overall for his robot mode, though the altmode suffers when it comes to proportions. He should be easier to obtain than his T30 self hopefully, especially given the way he is a Deluxe and part of a main wave (take notes, Cosmos). All we need now is Windcharger to complete the team, but our next Minibot will instead be another Bumblebee.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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