Name: Highbeam
Series: Generation 2
Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Tracker
Alternate Mode: Sports Car
CAR MODE
Height: 2cm Length: 7.5cm Width: 3cm
Highbeam is a metallic green sports car with black painted windows and a silver painted engine block. The entire top surface is painted - nowhere except the front and rear bumpers remain the base black plastic. He's got black tyres with chrome gold hubcaps painted on. While all this paint may sound like he's asking for paint chips, mine has no chips and he's 10 years old. This potential weakness is in fact a strength, since the green is a really nice effect, and looks like the sort of metallic paint you see on sports cars.
The moulding of the engine block is quite complex, and behind it is a spoiler. He has moulded pop-up headlights and circular taillights, all of which contributes to a good level of detail for such an inexpensive toy. He has axles, as all G2 Gobots had (being their major gimmick), and rolls really well. He can use a Hot Wheels style track, being the same scale as Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars.
In my opinion, this has always been the best Gobot/Spychanger mould, in fact it's the mould Raksha chose for Nightracer 1994, since she thought it was the best of the bunch also. Combine the good mould with a great paint job and this is a good car mode.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Pretty simple. Pull down the rear to form the legs, fold down the hood to form the chest, pull out the arms.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 7cm Width: 4cm
The black plastic now dominates - he's got black arms and lower legs (with the outsides of his arms painted green). His chest is green, his groin, thighs and head are yellow. His face is painted black, his gun is yellow. These three colours work very well. The yellow is a rich yellow rather than a canary or lemon yellow, which helps make this scheme work.
Highbeam has less visible detail in this mode, since much of the detail is on black parts (the shins and face). The chest, being a car bonnet, is smooth, but his groin and thighs, being yellow, carry a lot of mould detail.
The robot mode doesn't have any of the flaws that some other Gobot moulds have, it looks pretty sleek and stylish. Poseability is about what you'd expect of a Gobot - his shoulders rotate. It's not great, but for a $4 toy it's enough. The play value's in the car mode, anyway.
VARIATIONS
None as such, but recoloured several times - Gobot Bumblebee, Nightracer and the many versions (at least 5) of X-Car/Crosswise.
OVERALL
The best of the G2 Gobots, partly due a good mould but also to a good colour scheme, that's actually atypical for G2. I don't know that I'd recommend him over Crosswise, but the colour schemes are about as different as they could be. Easily better than Gobot Bumblebee, who has a similar colour scheme anyway. Of course, there are those out there who hate Gobots, and I don't expect them to like this guy. Assuming you can get into them, I'd really recommend this mould - 9.5/10, losing marks only because the black masks a lot of the mould's detail
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