Yesterday I looked at Fansproject’s Diesel in his alt mode and basic robot mode, now it’s time to break into the back half of that trailer. Like the Native American hunters of old, Diesel makes use of all parts of the buffalo semi-truck. Our first stop is to cannibalize the back trailer to power up Diesel. Here’s where the fun begins because you have to bust down the trailer into all sorts of parts. All the time I was doing it I kept wondering, “How the hell am I ever going to get this back together again?” The first time I tried, I had one piece that I just couldn’t figure out how to get back into the mix. The second time I tried… well, the same thing happened. The third time was the charm and I figured out what I was doing wrong. Now I can practically rebuild that trailer in my sleep.

Diesel’s Powered Up mode basically consists of him wearing parts of his trailer as additional armor and weapons. It gets broken down and rebuilt into four parts. Two of these become weapon pods that go on his shoulders. Each one has a set of quad-barreled blasters with four missiles above them and a smaller quad-rocket pack on each side. It’s safe to say that Diesel can lay down a ridiculous amount of fire without even trying. I like these things a lot, as they look intentional, rather than a convenient way to stick extra parts on him. I don’t think they’re every day walking around weapons, but rather Sunday Best for when he has a special battle to show up to and wants to present himself well.

The other two parts of the trailer just clip onto Diesel’s shoulders via the combiner ports. Unlike the shoulder weapons, these do look like just a convenient way to stick extra parts on him. They don’t really serve any purpose other than to bulk him out and so you can say, “Hey, look he really does use all his parts!” Honestly, they don’t look as bad as I thought they would, but I’m sure I will never display him with those on ever again. Assuming you give him his gun, that just leaves the parts to make M3’s sword. The sword is too big for Diesel to sensibly wield even in this Powered Up mode. He can, however, wear it on his back. The instructions are a little vague on this point, so I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m content with just placing it aside for now.

Powered up modes are all well and good, but let’s face it, the real attraction here is “The-Robot-That-Shall-Not-Be-Called-Menasor!” While the Motor Squad’s combined mode has often been referred to as Intimidator, I don’t see any mention of that name on the package or in the instructions. Instead, he’s just known as the Motor Squad Military Multiplexer, or M3. I’ve only formed M3 one time so far, and it was a total bitch. It should get easier after a couple more tries, but it was quite the chore and I’m going to let a little time go by before I try it again. Basically, Diesel transforms into the torso, head, and upper legs. The trailer parts form the framework for the legs with Car Crash and T-Bone basically just stuck on in their car modes. Downshift and Last Chance are than transformed into the arms, with trailer parts used to form the shoulders, hands, and to fill out the gap in Last Chance. It’s a daunting task to get through it, but it’s hard to complain when the end result looks like this…

M3 is absolutely gorgeous and he’s a lot bigger than I expected him to be. A lot of the added height comes from the fact that his lower legs are built from his trailer and the cars are just stuck on to bulk him out. That’s not a complaint. Quite the contrary, the way he’s designed makes for a remarkably stable combiner. The feet are broad and ball jointed to give him the ability to achieve a flat and wide stance. The legs do, however, represent the biggest design departure from the original G1 character as the cars are on the front and not the back. I have to admit I like having them on the front better.

The arms are a tad less stable than the legs. If you manipulate the figure a lot, you may find the arms mis-transforming a bit, but that’s not always the case, and it doesn’t keep him from being a fun figure to play with. The hands feature fully articulated fingers and they hold on really well. I had a lot of fun putting M3 through the paces and didn’t have to worry about bits falling off. The chest piece, formed from the back wheel assembly of the trailer, did pop off once, but only once. The combiner ports use a keyhole method, which locks the limbs in place and releases them again when you turn the slot to line up with the notch. This clever system solves the problem of having to apply a scary amount of force (I’m looking at you, Uranos!) to get them on or off. If you’re applying any degree of force, you aren’t lined up right.

Like everything else, M3’s giant sword is cobbled together by pieces of the trailer. The blade comes from two side panels and the point is concealed within. The hilt is stored under the trailer just behind the wheel assembly. Like everything else in this set, it’s a brilliant piece of parts-forming design. There’s a long tab on the hilt, which pegs tightly into M3’s fist, which allows him to hold it perfectly.

Like TFC’s Uranos, I mainly bought the Motor Squad to display as a team in their original robot modes. Now that I’ve spent some time with M3, I’m seriously rethinking that. The combined mode on this guy is just a homerun and I really think it deserves to be shown off. As a kid watching the Sunbow cartoon, I thought the Stunticons were the coolest thing ever, but their figures were so disappointing looking that I never even asked my parents for them. Owning FP’s amazing homage is in a lot of ways like a 20-some year old dream come true. And that brings us to the question of value. All told the Motor Squad set me back about $375 (some retailers are now selling him as a complete set for just a tad more) if you add up the shipping, and I have absolutely no regrets. When considering the amazing amount of work and planning and design that went into these figures on an individual basis as well as their gestalt mode, it’s easy for me to see where all the money went. In terms of the engineering, combining M3 is a bit more involved then I would have liked, but the finished product is probably the best Transformers-style combiner that I’ve ever seen. Of course, that honor may fall before the end of the year as MMC’s Feral Rex is shaping up to be mighty impressive as well.

It’s hard to believe that it was almost a year ago that I received Car Crash, the first figure in the Motor Squad, Fansproject’s take on the Transformers G1 Stunticon team. It took until the end of the Summer to get the rest of the cars, but the real wait began after that, as the final figure, Diesel hit delays and didn’t land in my hands until about a week ago. Was it worth the wait? Well, today and tomorrow we get to find out. Today I’ll be looking at Diesel in his alt mode and basic robot mode and then tomor1row I’ll circle back around to look at his powered up mode as well as the combined mode of the “Stunt-Driving-Evil-Robots-That-Are-Most-Definitely-Not-Called-Stunticons.”

The packaging for this line has been a real treat. Each figure has come in a colorful and professional looking window box with some kick ass artwork. Diesel comes in a very similar package, with the key difference being that he’s boxed in his alt mode, whereas the rest of the team came in their robot modes. That may really irk some people, I don’t know. It probably should upset my borderline OCD, but oddly it doesn’t. The toy just looks so good in the package, and I happen to like the fact that if you line up all the car boxes with the side panel artwork out, Diesel’s box fits neatly on top and is almost the exact same length. The front and top panel feature great character artwork, whereas the back panel shows Diesel making use of the M3 Kit in Powered Up form. For whatever reason, Motormaster has always been one of my favorite Decepticons and I can still remember how disappointed I was when I first saw his figure. Woof! Even as a kid, that was a bitter pill. Suffice it to say, I am super excited to get Diesel out of the box and check him out.

Diesel comes sandwiched between two clear plastic trays. If you were expecting to see a whole bunch of additional parts inside, you’ll be surprised to find just the truck. The Military Multiplexer Kit is comprised of cannibalized parts of the rear half of Diesel’s trailer leaving no messy combiner pieces to rattle around in a tote when you’re not using them. The fact that Diesel is one self-contained unit is a pretty impressive feat of engineering and design that can’t fully be appreciated until you start building his combined mode and see all the goddamn pieces. Included in the box is a nice color instruction booklet, which includes directions to convert the figure from truck to robot and back, as well as how to form the combined mode. You also get a color profile card.

Fansproject did a wonderful job recreating a modern and more detailed version of the original G1 Motormasters’ truck mode. From the black cab with purple windows to the grey trailer with purple striping, this alt mode is almost everything I had hoped it would be. Almost? Sure, I can’t deny that I wish there was a little articulation between the cab and the trailer, but I’m perfectly willing to accept and understand why it isn’t there. The trailer is covered with seams, but the panel lining sculpted into the trailer helps hide a lot of it. On the downside, because of the seams and hinges, I really couldn’t find any place on the sides of the trailer to stick a Decepticon insignia. Nonetheless, despite all the seams and hinges Diesel holds together tightly and he rolls along beautifully on ten wheels. The cluster that is attached to his rear trailer gate can also be removed if you find it too unsightly.

Diesel’s truck mode scales quite nicely with his four Motor Squad comrades. He’s probably a little smaller than he should be. If his trailer were hollow, you might be able to get one of the cars inside, but not two. I’m willing to be pretty forgiving here, since the size of the figures all had to work with each other for the combined feature. Whatever the case, putting all these vehicles together really conveys the Stunticon vibe that Fansproject was going for.

As you can see above, Diesel splits apart at the middle of the trailer. The front half forms his robot mode and the back half is the M3 kit that can be used to beef up his robot mode or combine the team together. When split apart, Diesel’s front half still forms a perfectly viable vehicle, somewhat like a box truck. You can even remove the tailgate pieces from the back of the trailer and put it on the back of the shorter half. I can’t imagine ever displaying him this way, but I do like that FP was able to keep the robot contained to the front half of the vehicle. Ok, so I can only admire the alt mode for so long. The truth is I was a little apprehensive about transforming this guy. I’ve heard things. But I’ve got my instruction booklet in hand, so here goes!

Nine times out of ten I can figure out how to do a Transformer without help from the instructions. In this case, I gave up pretty quickly and took it step by step. I did this partly because the transformation really is crazy complex, and partly because I didn’t want to try to move something where it shouldn’t and wind up causing stress marks, or worse: Snapping something off. Overall the quality of the plastic feels great here, but there is one hinged arm that connects the torso to the pelvis that worries me. The toy places a lot of responsibility on that poor little arm, plus it is required to rotate along a little peg and requires some force to move it. Forcing it hasn’t caused any stress marks, but the first couple of times doing it, I held my breath. Truthfully, it’s the bottom half of Diesel that gave me the most trouble, particularly the lower legs and ankles. Once I got him into robot mode, I was able to reverse it with only a few glances at the book and going back again to robot mode was much easier the second time around. Diesel features some very clever engineering, but he’s very complex and has a ton of moving parts. I can’t even begin to imagine the process that went into designing him.

When you’re done you get a very cool looking robot mode that includes some solid references to the original G1 toy design. The black and dark grey deco fits him nicely and there’s a little metallic silver and purple and yellow to make him pop. The grey metal finish is so convincing that parts of him really look like diecast when they are indeed all plastic.  It’s great that FP was able to keep the split cab front on the legs, especially with how neatly they wrap around the lower legs. Diesel also retains the boxed head design of the original Motormaster. The head sculpt is good, but surprisingly neutral for a Decepticon. Still, it matches the aesthetic FP used for all the Motor Squad. The official transformation has the combiner ports angled out on his shoulders, and while it adds a bit of flare, it’s obvious that they’re combiner ports, so I prefer to leave them tucked in.

While Diesel is mostly a pretty clean robot, he wear his trailer folded up into wings that come off his back. Both pieces are ball jointed, so you can usually get them out of the way when posing the figure. Plus, Diesel is a fairly husky robot, so the trailer wings are mostly concealed when viewing him from the front. I thought these would be a potential problem, but they’re really not. Of course, since they are set on ball joints you can just pop them off the figure if you really don’t like them, but I think that’s cheating.

Diesel features a lot of serviceable articulation. The shoulders swivel and feature lateral movement, although they do tend to push the chest plate out, so it’s a good idea to hold in place with a finger when making drastic movements with the arms. There are also swivels just below the shoulder, but these can only be used if you display Diesel with the combiner ports angled out. I prefer to lose the swivel and keep them tucked in. His elbows are double-hinged and while they seem to butt up against the back panels hanging off the backs of the shoulders, those pieces are hinged to prevent it. The wrists also swivel. The hips feature solid ratchets that offer lateral and forward movement as well as swivels. The pelvic plates are hinged to accommodate the leg movement. The knees are hinged and the ankles are ball jointed allowing for wide stances, and the feet include a clever post that allows the leg to rest on it and support the figure.  Lastly, the head is ball jointed and the figure can swivel at the waist.

The only piece of Diesel’s M3 Kit that you need for his basic robot mode is his trailer door and the thing stuck to it. This entire assembly breaks down and gets rebuilt as Diesel’s big gun. Again, another example of some really impressive engineering. One of the pegs that hold it into the back tailgate was broken off, but obviously Fansproject new this was a problem because my order contained a baggie with a brand new replacement part. The broken part was still perfectly useable, but it’s nice that they went ahead and took care of this, particularly when the figure costs so much.

Diesel is not quite twice as tall as his fellow Motor Squad robots, which jives quite well with the scaling of the original G1 Hasbro team. He also scales very well with Fansproject’s Function-X series and stands about a head taller than those figures. As someone who expected to display him in his basic robot mode with the rest of the team, I couldn’t be happier with how he turned out. Aesthetically, I find Diesel to be a near perfect update to old Motormaster and he looks absolutlely stunning when displayed with the rest of his team. But at $120-150, Diesel needs to do a lot more than form a nice Voyager sized robot, so tomorrow I’ll be back to bust into his trailer and take a look at his Powered Up mode as well as the entire team combined into their M3 gestalt form!