Name: Swerve
Series: Cybertron
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Futuristic Sports Car
Thanks to Goktimus Prime for loaning me Swerve, making this review possible.
CAR MODE
Height: 3cm Length: 10cm Width: 6cm
A dark red sleek looking racer with transparent smoky headlights, windshield and tyres. Swerve is a repaint of Clocker with a colour scheme that loosely matches G1 Swerve. There's some white and dark grey on the back, while the seats inside his open cockpit are also grey. There are huge silver exhausts on either side, which dominate Swerve's car mode, and a rather ugly huge silver Autobot logo on the hood. For the most part this is a pretty decent colour scheme - the silver insignia on his hood really brings it down.
There are some great aspects to this vehicle mode. Other than the sleek, open roofed vehicle which suits the Speed Planet theme perfectly, Swerve's moulded seats, door-mounted exhaust pipes and small winglets on the back are all nice features inherited from Clocker. The colour scheme does a good job of making this toy feel different to Clocker, with a much darker set of colours. I'm impressed with this divergence, even if I do prefer Clocker's appearance.
The play value here is pretty good for a basic car without axles. Swerve doesn't roll so well but all four wheels to turn easily. Inserting his Planet Key (code: s12r) into the back of the engine block behind the cabin will cause it's sides (and the winglets) to spring up, allowing you to swing out red cannons, which will happily sit on either side of the cabin if you remove the key and fold the sides back down - my preferred weapon option. The engine block really impresses me - unlike many weapons that attach in vehicle mode it looks like it belongs, it's been a while since we've seen one this well executed (Heavy Load of RiD to be exact).
The exhausts are removable, which doesn't really do much except increase the likelihood of misplaced pieces. Removing the engine block and exhausts leaves a somewhat bare looking convertible - and with much of the colour gone, the resulting car looks terrible, since that stupid Autobot logo is left as the only defining feature.
A good mould with a new colour scheme which - for the most part - is pretty clever. Hasbro's annoying tendency to slap giant allegiance symbols on repaints ruins things here, however. Surely Swerve would have sold just fine without a crappy stamping on his hood. It's still a good car mode - but nowhere near as good as Clocker's thanks to the silly paint mask.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Remove the engine block, open the panels underneath the back of the car and flip out the back to form his legs, then close the panels again. Swing the doors down to form his arms and unfold the forearms. Fold back the front of the car, swing out his shoulderblades, rotate the head and attach shoulderblades to the chest. Give Swerve his gun and you're done.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 11cm Width: 7cm
Again based on dark red, with a white chest, silver face and upper arms. Swerve's elbows and feet are dark grey while his eyes are sadly the same silver as his face. Thankfully we don't have a mural-sized allegiance symbol now (it's on his back). To be honest, I'm quite happy with the lack on any allegiance symbol here. The dominance of red around a while chest make this robot mode a pretty good match to that of his G1 namesake, which is nice. While the car mode has quite a few colour scheme problems (most of which were avoidable), this robot mode looks really good.
There's a G1 feel about this mode, from the Hot Rod like exhausts on the back of his forearms to the generally square shape of the toy - and of course the lining up of his colours with the Minicar of the same name. Granted, the design looks nothing like the Metallurgist Minicar, but that doesn't detract from the G1 feel. The fist holes are the exhaust attachment points, although the gun can still fit if the exhausts are in place. Detaching them will allow you to see through the holes, but there's not really anywhere else for the pipes to go, so you might as well leave them. Adding to the G1 feel are some car features visible here - the front of the car sticks out a little as a backpack/hood, the rear tyres sit on his boots and the seats are on the elbows.
Swerve again has good play value. The gun is fully functional, although again I recommend against leaving the key inserted. Visually it works well with the sides up or down, I prefer them up now since it's a little more compact and allows more arm movement. The shoulders and hips are ball joints, the head and waist turn while the elbows and knees are hinged. The calf panels work as heelspurs, which explains why they bothered with them on a basic sized toy (they're rare even on large Transformers). The articulation gives Swerve a lot of meaningful movement, with tightish shoulders the only real downside.
In contrast to Clocker, the colour scheme improves in robot mode, and the G1 homage is good - while I'm not certain this was intentional but I'll happily take it. The poseability is great and the engine block does a great job of being a gun rather than a lump with barrels. This robot mode should appeal to G1 fans, with the added bonus of articulation and nice colours.
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of.
OVERALL
But for the silver on his hood (and lack of it in other places on the car mode), this could have been a really good repaint. The robot mode looks great, the car mode still looks okay - but the huge symbol on the hood is really cheesy. Both modes have a lot of play value, and the engine block gun does a great job of adapting to both modes, rare for a weapon that deploys in both modes. I'd recommend Swerve if you missed Clocker, but recommend skipping him if you have the mould already - 6.5/10
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