FansProject Intimidator: Car Crash

 It’s time to start looking at a new Third Party combiner team, one of two new ones before 2018 comes to a close, in the midst of Warbotron and Quantron and at the end of the Poseidon articles. But, you know, it’s Coffin style to dive in to a new thing when there are still old things in progress. So, let’s look at Car Crash, first of the FansProject Stunticons.

In general terms, the FansProject Stunticons are similar to the MakeToys Technobots in team layout. The Stunticons are comprised of four smaller figures, larger than the official Legends class but smaller than the official Deluxe class, and one substantially larger torso figure. Also like the MakeToys Technobots, it does not appear that the limb figures are capable of scrambling, so each forms a designated arm or leg. But, unlike the Technobots, it could be possible to scramble the Stunticons, given the way they attach to the torso. Online images seem to support this idea, but it has not been tried in practice due to a lack of suitable time. It is already on the list of Winter Break goals though, and since the remainder of the team is very, very unlikely to be covered before the end of the calendar year, any successful attempts will be documented in future entries in the Intimidator series.

Back to the figures in general: each of the limb figures is very poseable, being a torso with ball joints that limbs attach to. The vehicle modes for three of the five are rather G1 accurate, and the other two are real different, almost as though to set were designed by different people or at different times, or maybe the full intent of the set was not realized when the project commenced. The way the combined mode is realized is real, real different, not just for 3P combiners but for combiners in general, and like all of the 3P combiners in my collection aside from Hades, the Coffin came to this one late, so the design process of the figures is unknown to me and apparently lost to time.

But, Car Crash specifically. The FansProject version of Stunticon Breakdown, Car Crash starts off the set with a real pleasant experience. The robot is very lithe and poseable, and has a very satisfying transformation. The robot is tall and thin; the car is long and rectangular. The compression happens via the legs, the thighs collapsing into the hollow calves that form the cars’ front end. Car Crash really gives the impression that a robot sprang out of a car, almost (and I mean this as a good thing, despite the way I’m about to say it. –mr) like a G1 realization of the live action movie style of Transformer. Many Transformers have a general look like their alt mode opened up to reveal a robot hidden inside, but the live action movie designs have a general sense of a robot bursting out of the vehicle mode, complete with alt mode parts that get stuck to the body. That’s how Car Crash looks: like a car elongated and stood up, and was a robot wearing pieces of a car. The Coffin is no fan of the live action movies or their hideous designs, but the overall approach works on this toy.   This is most obvious in the lower legs, where the front end of the car splits open and reveals a foot and calf, and the wheel folds about halfway inwards.

The figure, which will return as T-Bone later in the set, is very poseable, made possible by swivels in the arms and legs moreso than actual joints. Don’t like the way that came out, but. There are thigh and bicep swivels which give additional movement to the figure, and it makes the figure seem more complicated than it actually is. Shoulders and hips, elbows and knees, bicep and thigh swivels, wrists and ankles, an outward shoulder, and a waist compose the joint loadout, the usual one, and the lanky legs make the figure seem taller than it seems he should be. The car mode is so small, so such a relatively large robot is a cool surprise. I’m just going to say this now: this mold, whether it appear as Car Crash or T-Bone, is the best figure of the entire set, and there is some real competition coming.

Such a great figure.

The transformation is very simple, really only doing anything noteworthy in the legs. From car to robot mode, the front end splits down the center, and the legs pull downward from the hips. The thighs are folded up inside the front of the car, and folding down the front bumper creates the feet, and pops open the windshield, allowing the front tire to fold under and puff out the lower legs. The legs then turn sideways, so the side panels of the car face front. Such a good conversion. Then, everything goes back to basic. The shoulders pull away slightly from the rear of the car, and the arms pull downwards. A plastic block fold behind the back and just hangs there. If this were not such a rad sports car, this block would end up being the trunk of the vehicle, but it is just a block of plastic on a hinge. Two pegs allow for the weapon to be attached to the underside of the car mode, but really, this part doesn’t serve any actual purpose,  not even in combination. The combined mode comes together a bit differently than most other combiners, unofficial or otherwise, but on first observance, you would be forgiven for thinking that maybe this trunk block would have played some role in that, but you’d be wrong nonetheless.

Car Crash comes with a two piece blaster that isn’t much more than two chunks of plastic that attach to each other, as a body of a blaster and then the barrel. The weapon does have some detailing, but there’s not very much to look at here.

The car mode is cool and sporty, an updated looking G1 Breakdown race car. Then again strikes the Curse of Not Knowing About Cars that afflicts the Coffin so. It’s cool and sleek and low to the ground, and is accurate to the original in terms of paint. It’s a nice car, but I just don’t know how to talk about it other than in those weak terms. The underside of the car mode clearly displays the robot folded up, and the pegs on the bottom of the trunk area allow the weapon, split into its two parts, to attach and serve as exhaust pipes, which is a real neat trick. And the parts fit pretty snuggly as well, so there isn’t much need to worry about them coming detached.

 

 Surely we will revisit this idea as we progress through the rest of the Fans Project Stunticons, but Car Crash is a figure that, alone or part of the full team, is absolutely worth inclusion in your collection. Various fan-run conventions have produced a G2 repaint of this figure, for what is apparently going to be a full G2 Intimidator combiner, and that’s a little too much for my tastes. But if there’s any space on your shelves for unofficial Stunticons, Car Crash is an excellent first piece.