Transformers Generations Legacy Velocitron Speedia 500 Collection Toy
Item No.: Asst. F3075 No. F5761 Manufacturer:Hasbro Includes:Lightbar, blaster, shoulder cannon, missile Action Feature:Transforms from Robot to Police Car Retail:$24.99 Availability: August 2022 Other: Ross Fodder in 2023 at $7.99
In 2022 Hasbro released a nifty Walmart exclusive program called the Velocitron Speedia 500 Collection, some of which sat, some of which were impossible to find, and a lot of fans were left wondering if there were figures sitting in a warehouse unsold. Sure were! The Diaclone Universe Clampdown figure was packed at one per case in wave 1 and the much scarcer wave 2 cases, which were eventually dumped at Ross in September of 2023. They could have sold a lot of these guys at full price - but didn't. Walmart's hesitancy to take on its exclusives combined with a massive pile-up of inventory in warehouses everywhere resulted in me getting a second (third?) crack at a hard-to-get figure at 68% off, which is pretty close to nice. The toy is a repaint of a remold which itself was based on a repaint of a remold from 20 years ago.
Speedia Clampdown is Kingdom Red Alert with new paint. I initially skipped him due to not wanting to spend the money - but $7.99 isn't real money. I really like the Siege Sideswipe mold and its many descendants, and I believe this puts me at a complete set of them all. He's mostly white, with some gorgeous light gray arms and black shins. It looks like how you imagine Ectotron [FOTD #2,197] and will probably go in that lineup of cop Autobots you either love or aren't so sure about.
Due to how color layouts break down, he's not an exact match for the previous releases - his blaster is black, and not red. But he does have a black rocket launcher with a painted red rocket. He traded away his red shins for gray, and I think is the better for it - you lose authenticity, but you get something that looks sharp. And I suppose Hasbro has another reason to make another Clampdown toy in 5-10 years and/or when they make another Sideswipe mold. Articulation is consistent with otherversionofthemold, and somehow I'm not tired of it at all. I love the nice tight joints, and how the articulation is good enough to hold any reasonable pose one might hope to get out of a toy made for American mass retail with around 20 points of articulation.
Transformation is a delight - this might be my favorite conversion of the current decade by a long shot. The car mode lets you pop up the "door panels" and shins, and everything unfolds pretty nicely. It's as close as these things get to intuitive when they're sold to collectors, because someone ten years ago convinced Hasbro that collectors want "complex" toys which, I think, is a massive lie. Fun, sure. And this one is fun enough.
He has two firearms and a lightbar, and you can plug them in the car mode as you like. There's a distinctive "CYBERTRON" police badge on the roof of the car, with "POLICE" markings on the side. There are also little "CYBERTRON" badges there too - but you don't get all the crazy sticker detail of the original toy. It looks prety much like the original car mode, complete with silver wheel covers. This mold lacks a spoiler, and other than mounting weapons and rolling wheels it's nothing too fancy. It gets the job done, and it's pretty good.
It sold well enough the first time around, and I'd call it scarce as I only saw him maybe two or three times before the clearance dump at Ross. (I saw Cosmos but once before the dump.) Since the character is kind of a nobody to comic or cartoon fans, it's unlikely that the widespread availability of this toy will excite a lot of fans. Now, he's just another more or less generic repaint and there are more exciting versions of this mold to buy. But possibly not cheaper ones. For eight bucks I'd give this a strong recommendation, because his blasters alone are probably worth a few bucks and you can steal those to give another figure. He's also a nice robot figure and maybe he can pal around with that Autotrooper that Target just got. I probably would be mad at myself for paying $25 for Yet Another Sideswipe that looks like Red Alert, but I'm very happy at $8.
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