G1 Joyride

with Hotwire

Series: Generation 1
Allegiance: Autobot
Categories: Powermaster
Year: 1988

Enjoy each moment like it's your last.
A reckless road-racing robot. Always drives faster than he should. Enjoys the thrill of racing at high speeds. Fights for the fun of it, which annoys many of his more serious-minded Autobots. Titanium-belted wheels secrete adhesives for pinpoint maneuverability on the road. Binary-bonded to the Nebulan, Hotwire, a reformed car theif and ace mechanic. Also armed with photon blaster that freezes internal mechanisms on impact.

Robot Mode: Joyride is a pretty average robot for his day and age. Meaning blocky, not very posable, not very detailed, and really just plain looking. He has elbows, which raises him up over some other toys from those years, but that's pretty much it. His Powermaster figure attaches to the back in this mode, so it's out of sight. Not much more to say here. A robot mode on the bad side of average.

Vehicle Mode: The best thing about Joyride is his vehicle mode. A pretty nice-looking off-road buggy, especially with the exposed engine block (his Powermaster figure). The vehicle looks more or less realistic (except for the colouring) and can be armed with Joyride's weapon. Not a revelation, but the best thing about a rather unspectacular figure.

Partners / Add-Ons: Joyride comes with the Nebulon Hotwire as a Powermaster engine figure. The figure in the pictures isn't actually Hotwire, though, it's Lube, partner of Slapdash. The original Hotwire apparently got lost sometime before I bought this figure. But except for colour they look pretty identical and fulfill the same function, so no skin of my teeth.

Remarks: Joyride completes my collection of Generation 1 Powermasters, which is pretty much the only reason I got him. As a robot he's on the bad side of average and while the car mode isn't bad, it doesn't raise this figure up much. The Powermaster gimmick was, in my opinion, slightly better than the other Master gimmicks, simply because the robot still retained play value if you lost the small Nebulon figure. Still, with or without being a Powermaster, Joyride is below average. Only for G1 completists.

Rating: C-