Time for the top five. Let's make it happen.
No matter what else happens there's one thing core to being an Autobot: road milage. Sure there's jets and dinosaurs and so on but all the core Autobots are all about cruising down the highway.
In the year 2005 (fiction) or 1986 (reality) Transformers was undergoing a huge change. Hasbro had discovered that licensed vehicles proved expensive to produce, and this may have led to their decision to suddenly jump the franchise into the farflung future of five years ago. In the fictional 2005 humans now had handheld lasers, hovercars and semi-regular contact with aliens. The line between Cybertronian and Earth technology had blurred to the point where Metroplex had full time human staff. Both literally and figuratively the older characters were being shoved aside to make way for new futuristic goodness. Let's check it.
#5: Futuristic Cars Those of you with long memories or the ability to read posts written long ago (what manner of witchcraft be this) may remember the sliding scale of realism I introduced in the Tanks entry. For those who don't recall it went: A is totally realistic (like the UK Big Brother), B is borderline realistic (like Girls Next Door), C could charitably be called realistic if it was dark and you were squinting (like Jersey Shore) and D is about as realistic as trying to fill in a government tax form without your brain exploding (like The Hills, which also makes my brain explode). Since this is futuristic cars we're talking about, this entry is firmly set in the world of D with maybe a hint of C.
That's chrome you'll have, in the future.
It's Hot Rod! If this was Star Wars he'd be Luke! If this were Turtles, he'd be Michaelangelo! If this were Transformers, he'd be Sideswipe! He's a fun-loving, irresponible party boy with a sleek car mode and far too close a friendship with the token human. Much to the disgust of many when Optimus passed on (for the first time of many times) this johnny-come-lately took up the Autobot Matrix of Emo (filled with the wangst of the ages) and grew bigger, more serious and more appropriate a vehicle for roadtrips for the whole family. He was also, not to put too fine a point on it, a dick. It soon became clear that he was just passively-aggresively saying he didn't want to lead as he'd hand over the Matrix pretty much whenever he could. In Japanese media he even buggers off into space to make sure no one can stick any more duties on him.
"Then that's what we'll call you. Crappiece."
Kup is the prerequisite grumpy ol' bot/mentor. He's pretty much the Obi Wan of the Star Wars that is Transformers. I'm sure there are funny jokes to be made about his lack of a tailgate! Also one time he left a bunch of bots trapped in a mine because he was running away from a territorial but innocent beast, which he later killed without a moment's guilt! Sharp upholding of the Autobot code, oldtimer!
"All right! I'll go through with the deal. I'll let the German scientist hack my foot off. Then him and his friends can have their way with me. All for the flying car."
Rounding off the trinity of Autobot Future cars is Blurr. On the plus side he has all the advantages of a cartoon character on a caffiene rush (super speed, blurry trail) but on the minus side he has all the disadvantages of the same cartoon character (neurotic, incomprehensible). He's still awesome though. He's generally considered to be the fastest Autobot, maybe even if one includes the ridculously over-the-top Euro exclusives and Alternity. He talks even more than Bluestreak which gave Sandstorm a WTF moment and made Hardhead physically shut him up, possibly by kissing him.
All three of the above eventually ditched Wheelie, Perceptor, Springer and the Dinobots and went off to Cybertron where they drove around shooting targets and generally enjoying hijincks. They ended up travelling to a distant planet, Nebulos, where they gained Targetmaster partners.
"I've got better things to do tonight than be released in the Universe line!"
Springer was meant to be the charismatic Han Solo figure in Transformers: The Actual Real Movie but to me he came across too smug and arrogant and kind of date-rapey. I really don't like this guy but despite getting an Energon homage, a Universe figure and a Botcon figure fans were still clamouring for another figure of him so I'm clearly in the minority.
"Teehee! I wouldn't know because I'm just a girl!"
When the movie came out, the first ever Transformers Fembot was seen, and on the big screen! It was a huge step forward for gender equality, in the sense that the male to female ratio was now 1:bloody loads instead of zero. Despite being a major character in the movie and in series 3 and 4 Hasbro decided not to release her as a toy as "girls don't sell in a boys' toyline!" This was one of the most unfortunate examples of casual prejudice in a toyline since Extreme Ghostbusters made figures of everyone but the guy in the wheelchair.
Arcee was apparently modelled by Floro Dery after a "naked Princess Leia" which, to be fair, is a dream that every male of a certain age has had at one point.
When Hot Rod
et al became Targetmasters she became a Headmaster (with Daniel Witwicky as her partner). That must make her relationship with Hot Rod weird.
The eight kabillion people who bought Metroplex also recieved Scamper, a cool little Transformer designed to fit Metroplex's various bays and containments. This guy was a six-wheeled car with rockets on the roof who, apart from his Autobot symbol, was pure black. That's
awesome. This guy needs a Generations update, fast.
The Technobots (yep, them again) had Lightspeed, a very cool looking car. According to his bio he was stuck as a car but desperately wanted to be a flyer instead. Should've done a shift swap with Silverbolt, mate.
"Who needs wheels when you can have EXTRA GUNS?!?"
Fastlane is one of the Autobot clones. Sadly he's most famous for saying "Roger-dodger!" He never really did anything else of note.
When Hot Rod, Kup and Blurr became Targetmasters (yeas, we're back to that) they were joined by a bunch of previously unseen Autobots, including the super-cool trio of Pointblank, Sureshot and Crosshairs. These three were a great bunch of guys with the portly Crosshairs becoming a deadly combat van, Sureshot being a kind of buggy thing in a groovy canary yellow and Pointblank being one of the coolest things you ever did see. Too bad they're not in the gallery!
"Coming this fall line up, a fashion designer and a computer geek share a body in
Chromedome meets Stylor!"
Chromedome is one of those figures that I'll defend to the end, even though I'm not sure why. He was one of the earliest figures I owned and may have been the first figure that I chose myself rather than getting as a present, but even back then I found his colors (brown, red and biscuit) unbearable and his robot mode awkward. As a kid I was obsessed with streamlining on vehicles and I found his lack of curves, slopes or spoilers offensive. Since then he's grown hugely on me and I like his sporty alt mode. It helps that he's the gutsy main character of Headmasters.
Groundbreaker of the Pretenders is sort of a racing car, if you squint.
In the Euro-exclusive years, the super cool team known as the Turbomasters was introduced. I already mentioned Rotorstorm and Thunderclash and of the other four three are fairly realistic cars, at least C. Boss, however, is pure D. His stylish car mode incorporates a huge cannon where his engine would be (I guess he has a rear engine). The recoil probably plays merry hell with his acceleration but he looks
fantastic. And a bit like the Batmobile.
The sole contribution to carness in the Beast era was provided by Mirage of Beast Machines. He's a bad guy (I KNEW it) and he turns into a kind of future-y race car.
RiD featured a return to more realistic vehicle modes, but Armada featured an odd mix of realism, pseudo-realism and full-on-damn-crazy-pants-on-the-ground-unrealism.
Hasbro: using familiar names for totally different characters since the Beast era.
Armada Blurr (who treads the line between C and D) is a serious and uncompromising sort with a fantastic car mode. Isn't he pretty? He had cool flip-out wings which would pop out if you shoved a tiny drag racer up his arse.
"Who are you calling a futuristic car? I'm obviously a Japanese Formula-1 armoured police racer thing. With a cannon."
Energon Prowl was, in a line full of modestly realistic vehicles, from the moon. I don't even know. It's like they kept throwing in homages until he exploded in a mass of futuristicness. He's one of the few Energon figures who's not a straight-up G1 homage.
There's a reason why I called this entry "Futuristic Cars" and not "Cybertronian Cars" and that reason is Velocitron. In the series Cybertron, much of the action took place on a planet obsessed solely with speed and winning races, much to Hot Shot's delight
and JaAm.
"I may 'ave Droid Rot and my circuits may 'ave gone bandy..."
It seemed like each of the planets needed some kind of old fart character to advice the Autobot travellers and Brakedown was that old fart.
Thankfully "Wheelie Syndrome" can be treated if discovered early
Clocker was the bright-eyed Robin to Hot Shot's Batman. Never thought I'd type that.
Altogether now! "I'm a man in Japan!"
Override was the dubious-gendered leader of Velocitron with an aching void that Hot Shot managed to fill. For some reason this pairing is popular in fanfic.
Override is surprisingly automorph heavy. After her legs are pulled out she all but transforms herself! Like a jumpstarter would be if they were good.
The Robin Reliant of the future.
I guess Crumplezone counts as a car. Either way he's a big lurchy guy with a simple transformation and a cool vehicle mode.
Remember when Geiger flirted with being a race car driver?
"Where we're going, we don't need cockpits."
Later Megatrons briefly played at being cars (always knew that guy had motor envy) and while RiD Megatron's car mode looked like Cthulu knocked up a junkyard, Cybertron Megsie had a streamlined and sexy car mode with fins and spikes everywhere. Pretty sweet!
The Bayverse tends to stick only to real alt modes so there's no futuristic cars there (with the possible exception of Lockdown). Instead, let's look to Animated!
And yet his fluffy dice are pink.
Lockdown is gonna be one of the more borderline examples on theis list as he's less a futuristic car and more some kind of classic hot rod with spikes stuck all over him. I was torn but I decided to include him. He is futuristic retro, in a Mad Max sort of way. Anyway, he's a cool and unique figure with a fantastic hulking robot mode. He's a grizzly, uncompromising, smirking bounty hunter which is not exactly a rarity in fiction but he carries it off well.
I'm not going to include Jazz or Bumblebee since, in my opinion, their car modes are more cartoony than futuristic. Not that that's a bad thing.
"Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer, he's a demon on wheels (turn turn turn)."
And here we come, full awesome circle. In Animated, Blurr is a distillation of his G1 self, losing the neuroses and gaining Flash-style super speed. His figure reflects this with a svelte body drawing influence from the unreleased Transtech Cheetor and a sexy car mode. Unfortuantely just as I was beginning to like him he got squished into a cube. Now he's Schroedinger's Blurr, and no-one knows if he's alive or dead until someone opens the box.
Anyhow, that's it for Cybertron cars, though I look forward to Drift, due to be repainted as Blurr (a comic character being repainted as a proper canon character? Crazy!) and any other cool new cars to come from the minds of Hasbro. If I missed any cars please assume they were too realistic for this list.
Until next time, you're the man now, dawg!
Bold words, Overlord. But you reckoned without one thing... Diem: combine! Well, I thought it was funny.
