Alternators Windcharger

Series: Alternators
Allegiance: Autobot
Year: 2005

Quick action equals quick victory.
His calmness, combined with quick thinking and foresight, has helped to turn the tide and achieve victory in many battles. Mainly serves as emergency personnel, instantly responding to distress calls. He lays down plans that cover strategies for years in advance as an extra bonus before moving on to the next assignment. His area of operations is not limited to interplanetary missions, but also include crossing the boundaries of time and dimensions. After having been reformatted into his BT form, he remained with the Earth/Cybertron Force as its logistic centre. Possessing vast experience in dimensional travels, combined with his acute insight into the flow of time, his sensory perception has been improved to the point where he is now able to detect any abnormal change in the timestream long before his fellow Autobots do.
(adapted from Binaltech Overdrive Tech Spec)

Robot Mode: Windcharger is possibly the best Alternator yet in terms of sleekness and simple good looks. The robot mode looks wholesome, there are no parts sticking out or hanging around, and he's very posable to boot. He doesn't really resemble the G1 Windcharger all that much, but that's okay. I never liked Minibots anyway. The one thing that really hurts on this figure, though, is the so-called weapon. Like with many Alternators it's the car's engine block, but the gun barrel is missing here. You can see it was there, the hinges are still on the engine block, but it was removed. So now what was a good-looking gun (according to the preview pictures I saw on the net) is a really stupid-looking 'shield'. Thank you very much for that, Honda. Windcharger can carry the roof of his car mode as a second shield, which looks pretty stupid, too. Leave the weapons off and imagine Windcharger can shoot laser blasts from his hands or something. Then he's a perfect bot.

Vehicle Modes: Windcharger has the easiest and smoothest transformation I've yet seen in an Alternator and his car mode looks good, too. A Honda 2000, it gets a little bonus for that alone, because it's my girlfriend's favourite car. It has the usual amount of detail for an Alternator vehicle, such as rubber tires, trunk and hood can be opened, and lots of interior detailing. As an added feature you can put either a closed roof on the car or put a folded-away-roof piece of plastic on the back. Either looks good, so pick your own poison here. A good car mode.

Remarks: I would have given this Alternator a straight A, because in terms of posability, sleek looks, and ease of transformation he's hands down the best Alternator I've seen yet. Unfortunately Hasbro decided, apparently because of the motorcompany Honda, to castrate Windcharger's weapon into a 'shield' by removing the barrel, because Honda wanted nothing that looked like a weapon on this bot. Raise your hands if you can make sense of that, please. So now Windcharger has two terrible looking shields and no weapon. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He's still one of the best out there, but this decision to castrate him cost him a lot of points. Still, as I said, the best Alternator in terms of transformation, sleekness and pure good looks. Let's hope Hasbro gets the rest right next time.

Rating: B+