Beast Machines Motorcycle Drone

Series: Beast Machines
Allegiance: Vehicon
Categories: Basic
Year: 2001

Run'em down!
The most maneuverable of the land-based Vehicons, each Motorcycle Drone is a lethal adversary to all Maximals. Commanded by Vehicon general Thrust, each Motorcycle Drone is capable of extreme speeds and amazing handling. Outfitted with enormous amounts of firepower - weapons capabilities include firing energy pulses by spinning front tire while popping a wheelie. In robot mode, one arm functions as a rapid-fire energy pulse weapon, the othe ras a grappling hook.

Robot Mode: Just as was the case with Tankor and his Tank Drones, the Motorcycle Drones also have a general, Thrust, who doesn't look a whole lot like his animated counterpart, and basic-sized drones, who are a whole lot closer. Or to put it short and sweet: Except for the colors and some small details, this Motorcycle Drone here looks more like Beast Machines Thrust than Thrust himself ever did.

The Motorcycle Drone is mostly red (whereas Thrust was more purple in color) and sadly the uniform coloring swallows some of the detailing on his head and torso. Once you look closer, you see that he's actually quite nicely sculpted for a toy this size. Especially the 'leg', which end in the front motorcycle wheel, and the big forearms look great. Speaking of the forearms, the Drone can fire missiles from both (though it usually needs to use at least one of these as a crutch in order to remain standing on its wheel) and the right one opens up, too. Sadly the panels that open up here are pretty loose, so the claw opens up of its own accord more often than not.

Seeing as it's pretty hard to stand a figure on a single wheel, the Motorcycle Drone also has the option of splitting the wheel into two tiny legs with the wheel-halves as feet. Doesn't look nearly as cool as the wheeled robot mode, but it's a whole lot easier for putting this guy on your shelve. So all in all a very nice robot mode with no obvious flaws except the unavoidable balance issues.

Alternate Mode: As you might guess from the name, the Motorcycle Drone transforms into a futuristic motorcycle. Or at least something vaguely resembling a motorcycle. There is no real place for a biker to sit on, naturally, and no visible controls, either. The big forearms of the robot mode now serve as exhausts on both sides of the rear wheel and the missiles double as exhaust flames.

One thing I noticed only after I'd already completed my photo session and packed everything away again: I mistransformed the vehicle mode slightly. You actually need to twist the Drone's head around some, so that the upper half of the robot mode head (the eyes and forehead) still looks forward, but the lower part (the mouth & jaw) now faces backward, which makes for a flatter, more aerodynamic looking head. I'll try and take a picture of the correct way to transform him and add it later.

Whether or not you have the head transformed right, the motorcycle looks very sleek, very fast, and very powerful thanks to its thick exhausts. Not much more I can write here except that I really like it.

Remarks: The second year of Beast Machine toys brought a vast improvement in terms of show accuracy and thus the Motorcycle Drone is, except for its colors, a very close match to those endless hordes of two-wheeled drones we saw in the TV series. You could also call it a direct ancestor to those motorcycle bots like Arcee and Chromia that we're currently seeing in the Revenge of the Fallen toyline. With one big improvement: The Drone can actually split its wheel into legs and stand without any aid.

I always liked the Vehicons and Thrust was one of my favorite characters in Beast Machines. And while this figure here is somewhat lacking in size, it's much better in terms of looks and play value than the actual Thrust toy. Besides, as a Basic-sized toy, it wouldn't cost too much to build an army of them. If you can still find that many, that is.

Rating: A-