Masterpiece Hot Rodimus

Prelude: Did you know that, to this very day, there are Transformers fans who hold a grudge against Hot Rod for allegedly killing their childhood hero Optimus Prime? Not the script writers of the movie, not the Hasbro executives who greenlit it, not even Megatron, no, they blame fictional character Hot Rod. Weird, eh? Well, I always liked Hot Rod and Rodimus Prime, so when I had the chance to acquire Masterpiece Hot Rod(imus), I snatched him up. Is he worth getting? Let’s say go!

Robot Mode: One of the first things that occurred to me when I first had this figure here in hand was: he is kind of the prototype for Studio Series 86 Hot Rod, isn’t he? Bigger, of course, and slightly different in terms of proportions and colors, sure, but the basic design of the figure, as well as the gimmicks included, are very much the same as SS86 Hot Rod.

But let’s start at the top. Hot Rod (I think Hot Rodimus sounds weird) is a Masterpiece figure, roughly comparable to a large Voyager- or small Leader-class figure in size, and is clearly meant to portray Hot Rod as we saw him in the 1986 Transformers animated movie. He has the look, he has the flames, he has the buzzsaw. Yep, that’s Hot Rod, the star of the movie.

As mentioned above, the figure itself is designed almost identically to the SS86 Hot Rod figure. The robot itself is pretty slim with almost no visible car parts, while the largest part of the car chassis is tucked away in a backpack. Said backpack is bulkier than on the younger figure and also bulkier than it looked in the movie, but overall it’s still pretty well done. The proportions are a bit weird, as Hot Rod’s rather angular torso looks a bit too big for his limbs and head, but overall the figure works nicely.

Articulation is pretty awesome, only lacking individual fingers to make it perfect, and Hot Rod can pose without much restraint. He even has double knee and double elbow joints. It’s only when posing the shoulders that you need to be a bit careful, as they can become unhooked from the backpack when you move them too much. Hot Rod can easily hold his two blasters in his hands, no problems here, and when you fold in one of his hands, you can plug his big buzzsaw in. It might be a tad too big compared to how it looked in the movie, but it works well enough.

Hot Rod can also flip down the visor he had for all of three seconds in the movie by flipping back the top of his head and folding it down over his eyes. You can also open up his chest to reveal the Matrix of Leadership inside. Which, given that he’s still Hot Rod here, he really shouldn’t have, but it’s there. You can take it out and put it in his hands for the classic “light our darkest hour” pose.

Finally, Hot Rod comes with a fishing pole, so you can recreate his initial appearance in the movie where he was fishing with Daniel. Not something I would have needed, but every Masterpiece figure needs at least one TOE (that-one-episode) item, I guess. The fishing rod is Hot Rod’s.

So bottom line: apart from the proportions being slightly off and the shoulders unhooking a bit too easily, the robot mode is very, very cool. It’s Hot Rod as we saw him in the movie. Nicely done.

Alternate Mode: Hot Rod transforms into the same kind of futuristic race car we saw in the movie and – again – both the transformation and design of the car is pretty similar to Studio Series 86 Hot Rod. Which just affirms my belief that the designers of SS86 Hot Rod took this Masterpiece figure here as their blueprint. The transformation isn’t the easiest in the world, but not really difficult, either. 

The resulting car looks awesome with its flames, chromed exhaust pipes, and extremely low profile. There are sculpted seats inside the cockpit, the wheels are nicely sculpted with rims, the exposed engine looks great, and overall I just love this car. Did anyone ever build a replica in the real world, using a real car? Gonna have to google that.

Nothing much more I can write here, to be honest. It’s the car we saw Hot Rod transform into in the movie, full stop. You can mount his two blasters on the roof, but there is no place to store the buzzsaw here (nor the fishing rod, just in case you were wondering). Have I mentioned that I love this car? Well, no complaints here at all. A great care mode.

Remarks: To this very day I consider it a bit of a weird thing that we have far, far more toys of Hot Rod than Rodimus Prime. Sure, Hot Rod appeared in the Transformers Movie, but he became Rodimus Prime in the finale and stayed that way for the entire third season of the G1 cartoon, so his Prime incarnation has at least ten times the screen time that Hot Rod had. And of those Rodimus Prime figures we did get, I think at least two thirds of them were a Hot Rod with some kind of upgrade parts. Just something I always found weird. But today we are talking about Hot Rod – called Hot Rodimus in Japan – and his Masterpiece figure, which – at the very least – came out after the official Masterpiece Rodimus Prime figure… which had a Hot Rod mode, too. 

I’m not really a Masterpiece collector, but I found Masterpiece Hot Rod at a local comic convention and couldn’t resist snatching him up. He’s a pretty great figure for the time, even though one can honestly say that the Studio Series 86 Hot Rod is a refined version of him. I also added Toyhax stickers to the figure after taking the pictures for this review, which make him look a bit more like the G1 toy detail-wise. I still love that toy, too, despite its limitations. So bottom line: if you like Hot Rod, you won’t go wrong with this Masterpiece version of him here. There is a Targetmaster version of him, too, if you want.

Rating: B+