 Wheelie
Orange face, toy-ish head
Transformers Retro G1 Deluxe Walmart/Hasbro Pulse Exclusive
Item No.: No. G2258
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Includes: Slingshot
Action Feature: Converts from futuristic mini-car from the year 2005 (1986)
Retail: $24.96 or $27.97
Availability: March 2026
Other: New Mold
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I had a pretty eventful/disaster-adjacent day when Wheelie (Retro G1 cardback) showed up. Early, to boot. When you have a compromised account, duct problems, appliance replacements, new tech purchases, and I could go on - but I stayed up late to photograph some new arrivals. Wheelie is one of those characters fans found super popular to hate, and Hasbro has always been up for making new versions of the rhyming child.
In the past ten years alone, we got him in Titan Returns, Studio Series as a non-transforming little guy, Studio Series as a core-class guy, a redeco of the sidekick in storybook colors, and now this guy - who is in more or less 1986 toy colors. Whew! Hasbro has very rarely repainted Wheelie, so if you have every American Wheelie toy, you've got quite a bit of variety. And I now realize the only proper Wheelie I don't have is the original.
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For those not familiar with Transformers: The Movie, Wheelie became a sidekick to Grimlock. In the subsequent cartoons, he was Daniel's friend - effectively taking the kid-identifier role from Bumblebee. To say "he was a product of his time" might be fair, but he feels very out-of-time today with his hoodie/hat, rhyming/rapping, and slingshot. A slingshot is particularly funny because it was something you saw on TV a lot as a kid, but never struck me as an actual part of regular childhood. Sure, Bart Simpson had one. Yeah, they gave one to Ezra Bridger too. But I can't say any of my friends, that I know of, kept one around when I was a kid. As an accessory it's a great match for the cartoon, and it's arguably a great symbol for a mischievous young boy. But Wheelie was more of a dorky good kid. It's a creative choice to give alien robots weird weapons like swords, slingshots, and axes, and unless I'm mistaken Wheelie (and Shadow Striker repaints of Wheelie) are the only Transformers characters to carry one.
How's the robot? Glad you asked. The designers ditched the 1986 roof-as-hat-visor, instead just moving all those parts to the backpack. New Wheelie has a toy-inspired orange face, but adds silver eyes that seem more or less what he could have had, if anyone wanted to paint them, back in the 1980s. The card art just has eyes matching his face. This gives Hasbro's new figure an articulated neck and a different body type worthy of charging you $28. Odds are a simpler toy would be groused about, but I'd have bought that, too. Articulation is on par with most modern minicars, although he's not as simple as Cosmos while not being as robust as Gears. He just feels like a typical Deluxe guy.
Articulation is nothing special, but not bad. He doesn't need ankle tilts, but he's got 'em. His wrists swivel, as does his neck. The designers did a nice job integrating a rotating waist joint. The elbows don't bend very far, so you might find that slightly disappointing.
Transformation has many steps, and there are lots of tabs and pegs to explode while you shift him to his car mode. I like the instructions here. I found transforming him back to robot mode more difficult, as a chunk of the car nose kept coming off.
I like the car mode, but it doesn't seem specific to any one version of the character. He has gray blocks on the back for his fists, sort of like the Core-class toy. The colors more or less match the original toy, but the animation model seems to have inspired the front of this car. The ridges on the back of the seating area and his wheels are nods to the toy, and it's mostly a pretty good little car. The wheels spin better and longer than a lot of his peers, and his car mode is mostly unblemished by excess ports. There's a hole on top for mounting a blaster, and a peg underneath for storing his included slingshot. There's nothing much ere that exceeds expectations, but also nothing disappointing.
This particular flavor of Wheelie feels a lot like what I expected toys to be in the future, assuming the future was extrapolated from Hasbro in 2010. It's a larger, more expensive figure with no play features and few accessories. The toy coloring is spot-on. They took some artistic license in not making him a weird hunched-over guy with a head in the middle of his torso. Maybe they'll do that version again some day, but this seems to make the most sense as a new mold for a store exclusive that could also have reuse potential in Norem book colors or G1 cartoon colors. I'm certainly feeling infatuated with toy colors right now, plus the smaller Core-class Wheelie is just fine on my Studio Series shelf. It's a good take on the toy, even if it's not a perfect match for any existing design... but it does come close to the Marvel comics model. I'd recommend this for anyone who wants a new twist on the original Wheelie toy.
--Adam Pawlus
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