Before I begin the review I need to let you all know where I stand on the G1 Rodimus Prime / Hot Rod toys. I thought Hot Rod was an overrated tpy, he wasn't bad but he felt a little brittle compared to Kup who had more weight to him. That being said, he was still a pretty cool Transformer with a greart alt-mode. Rodimus Prime however was always a strange toy. To me he looked like he had been shrunk down and was designed for something else then rushed. As it turned out, whilst the MP-Rodimus toy was being hyped, Japanese hobby magazines revealed that indeed the original Rodimus toy was ot the originally intended one, adn that he was reduced in size and complexity at the request of Hasbro to tie into the US market.

Upon taking Rodimus out of the box my first thought was "yes". The toy immediately resembled the original character models and prototype figures much closer than the released Generation One figure, particularly down to the more pinkihs colour scheme. I checked the figure out and notice that though he did feel a lot lighter than the Masterpiece Convoy, he felt like he had more weight than Starscream, who still feels too much like an airfix model kit to me. The plastic on Rodimus Convoy was undoubtable thinner than that used on the previous MP figure Grimlock, but he still looked and felt like the materials were an improvement on both Masterpiece Megatron and especially Masterpiece Starscream. Now don't get me wrong I do lke the MP Starscream figures. I own both the Japanese and US releases along with MP Thundercracker and Skywarp (the latter two heavily improve the toy IMO due to their colour schemes), but he still feels like the plastic could break at anytime.

What I noticed with Rodimus is that the feet held most of the weight and that the fingers, due to the scale of the toy, were more delicate than some of the others, primarily because they are a lot thinner. That being said, they still felt pretty strong.

The toy was pretty stiff and I only found one of the leg casing sometimes came open because it was a little stiff. One of the other problems that people had complained about was that the figure could not hold his weapons. Placing the weapons into Rodimus Convoy's right hand first, I noticed that the socket actually gripped it really well adn so I had no concerns that he would not be able to grip the weapon well enough, but what I did notice however was that TakaraTomy mis-judged the size of the weapons and so the joint on the figers can only be closed a certain amount of way before it pushes the gun out of the hand. I expect this is the issue many people had, and with other figures with appendable fingers, you use the hands to grop the weapons. With Rodimus this is not the case. The thumb is also a little tricky to place. You can't position the thumb in a natural place without the joint getting in the way of the weapon. However you can put it in one of two places where it is out of the way. One is by position it on the outside of the gun, the 2nd is by pointing it backwards and downwards slightly

The left hand did not grip his other gun as snuggly as the right but he could still balance with it lined up parallel to his arm.

Another complaint I had read about was that the gimmicks took away from the toy. I must say I can not disagree with this feeling any more strongly. The gimmicks from the optics, through the disc and oil can work really well and are hidden away so that if you do not want to use them, you don't have to. Its also a very nice feature that the traile has a place to store every accessory of Rodimus Convoy. The only accessory that I was disappointed with was the Matrix. Its far too small and cheap looking compared to Convoys and even some of the Matrix's that come with other figures.

In terms of joints, Rodimus has everything you can expect and is a massive improvement over the original toy. He instantly became the toy I felt the original could have been.

As previously mentioned, the toy also has a Hot Rod (Hot Rodimus) mode. This is where most of the gimmick come in to play. To be honest, there is not a great deal different between the two modes. The Rodimus face does look older and he is slighlty taller but the fin of the car does not change enough between the modes and looked like it was designed primarily for Hot Rod and them adjusted slightly for Rodimus. Overall though the figure is an improvement on the Rodimus Prime toy that came out during the 1980s, he is far better displayed in robot form as Hot Rod.

The transformation of Hot Rod at firsrt seems quite complicated but in realilty the instructions make it seem more difficult than it actually is. That beign said its an improvement over Grimlock but then he was never going to be a complicate Masterpiece (Grimlock that is).

The fiddly parts when changing Hot Rod are with the hands and those shin covers. They tend not to want to stay closed adn the hands can be a little fiddly at first to tuck away, but as soon as you manage it you realise that there is plenty of room. In car mode HotRod really looks the business and is an improvement over the original figure, though it does scream out for the TargetMaster partner. The roof of the car opening up is a nice touch brings back memories of the '86 movie.

Transforming Hot Rod into the vehicle mode of Rodimus Convoy you realise how much of a "cheat" TakaraTomy did to get around the transformation. Hot Rod pretty much drives bonned first into the trailer, with the Rodimus Convoy bonnet and side flipping out from underneath the trailer. The car is attached by sliding the spoiler into the trailer much like the '86 figure but it can actually result in not all of the wheels touching the ground.

When it comes to design, the Rodimus Convoy vehicle mode once again looks the business. He is a decent size and scale and actually pulls it off pretty well.

The trailer that comes with Rodimus is really nice. The original Rodimus trailer was very basic, and this is really just a larger version with a few improvement, but somehow it makes it seem a lot better than it should do. Rodimus can stand on the trailer and actually hold the cannon this time which can also have his rifle attached to it. One other nice addition to the figure is how both of Hot Rod's guns combined to form Rodimus Prime's large rifle. It actually works a lot better than it seems at first adn once again, he can hold the gun with his arm out without any problem.

Overall, if I were to rate this toy out of ten, I would give him an eight. He is let down by the slightly thin plastic, but the main issue I have with the toy is that the finger join is slighlty too close to the palm, so the fingers will not close around the gun properly. I have no quality control issues with my version, and he looks much better than Masterpiece Megatron, who in my opinion is the weakest of the line, and he has more weight that Starscream. He's not in the same league as Prime in terms of quality build, nor does he have the style that Masterpiece Grimlock bought to the table as a spot Masterpiece.

I'd just like to end this piece by saying that yes if you were to play with this figure, I suspect that he may break, but you'd break Megatron and Starscream much easier and at the price tag he costs, he is aimed at adult collectors and not children. Still, if you are a fan of the 1986 Transformers: The Movie, then this toy is well worth picking up and makes me want a Masterpiece Galvatron even more.