Name: Clampdown
Series: e-Hobby exclusives
Allegiance: Cybertron
Function: Cybertron Policeman
Alternate Mode: Lamborghini Countache Police Car
CAR MODE
Height: 4cm Length: 11cm Width: 5cm
A white Countache with black trim around the bottom, Clampdown has clear windows and a strobe rack with transparent red strobes on his roof. On top of the bonnet is a Diaclone sticker, although you can cover this up with an ensignia sticker, which the instructions actually suggest. On the doors, at the bottom, there's white "POLICE" writing in big letters.
A very nice car mode. The wheels are chrome, the tyres rubber, all the windows clear - there's even a windscreen wiper moulded onto the windscreen. One thing that this mould has over a lot the more recent Transformer cars is that it _really_ looks like a model of the car he's meant to represent. The back half of the car, save for the spoiler, is die-cast metal.
There's quite a lot of detail in the moulding. As well as the wiper, he has indented air intakes, mounded head & taillights, engine canopy and boot seams. Inside the cockpit there's room for one driver - a Diaclone driver, of course. You can actually mistransform him so that his head is visible in this cavity!
Play value is limited to rolling on his wheels, which is about as much as you can expect from a car mode, short of a pull-back motor. It doesn't have axles, and hence doesn't roll straight (or very far) unassisted. But Clampdown looks that good that overall this is still a fantastic car mode.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Pull back the engine block, separate it into two halves to form the legs. fold down the front around 90° and then pull out the doors to form the arms. You can them completely fold down the front to become his chest, and swing out the head from under this front section. Swivel up his roof to form the backpack, position the arms, give him his weapons and you're done.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 11cm Width: 7.5cm
The white and black is complimented by red in robot mode. Clampdown's still mainly white, but now with more black and some red thrown in. He's got a black blue head with a silver face. The chest is white, being the front of the car. His arms are silver & white, with tyres on his shoulders and black hands. The waist is red, the groin black. His thighs are red, shins black, the sides of the lower legs are white and the feet silver.
The Diaclone ensignia is present again on stickers on his forearms. For what it's worth, the stickers in robot mode are metallic foil on the reissues and paper on the original. The factory-applied headlight stickers are paper on both reissues and originals. Foil wears less, but if it curls, you're in trouble. So I guess I'd go with foil, but not by much.
Clampdown is the reissue Red Alert mould, which basically means he has two small protrusions on his shoulders, which serve to lock in the front section in car mode, and his missiles and launcher won't work with original Red Alert ones. Or Diaclone parts, if you're lucky enough to have a Diaclone toy. Clampdown is effectively a reissue of the Diaclone toy Red Alert is based on.
The missile launcher itself is black, the trigger white and the missile red, with the front part chrome silver. It shoots about a foot, which is pretty good for a Diaclone launcher. The gun is red. The toy's poseability is limited to only the shoulders, which can swivel 360°. But you can add the missile launcher to it's play value. At any rate, the strength of Swiper in this mode is his display value, as in car mode. Overall, a very good and well proportioned robot mode, with great display value. This colour scheme looks _very_ nice.
VARIATIONS
A reissue of a Diaclone. Being an eHobby exclusive, Clampdown is limited to one production one, so variations are pretty much impossible.
OVERALL
A great toy. Attention to detail, realistic car mode, good colour scheme and quality of manufacturing (metal, clear windows) all work in Clampdown's favour. Both modes work very well. Perhaps his biggest drawback is that he's very similar to Red Alert - a paint & sticker change in fact. No media appearances, but a great toy all the same, if you can get one at a decent price, 9/10
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