Dave's Transformers Legacy Rant: Buzzworthy Bumblebee Silverstreak

Autobot Silverstreak (Not-Datsun 280Z)

Permalink: https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/Silverstreak

Target exclusive found in either dedicated cases or mixed in with some
of regular Legacy Deluxe wave 1. Original mold is Earthrise Smokescreen,
this appears to be a straight redeco of the Bluestreak tooling (Walgreens
exclusive).

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/DeluxeNet2 - Bluestreak
https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/DeluxeE2 - Smokescreen

CAPSULE

$23 at Target.

Autobot Silverstreak: Bluestreak was recommended. This one is mainly of
interest due to its dual vectors of inspiration, otherwise a higher price for
yet another version of the mold is a bit of a downside.

RANT

Okay, story time, because this choice of name is brilliant...but takes
some explaining.
First, the name. Around 2000, Hasbro lost the trademark to Bluestreak,
but still wanted to make Bluestreak-homage toys (including a Commemorative
Series reissue of the G1 toy). So they went with Silverstreak, since it was
Close Enough, and hey the car mode's always been silver, eh? (The show model
is silver and black, something that the recent Generations Bluestreak used.)
After a few years, Hasbro got Bluestreak back, although I guess they decided
since then that "Silverstreak" alone wasn't a strong enough trademark, since
this toy is Autobot Silverstreak. I mean, they could have done a
toy-accurate deco without the black parts in car mode and called that
Silverstreak, but they had a deeper game to play.
Now the color scheme, which is a bit longer of a tale. If you know a
decent amount about Transformers lore, you know about Diaclone, one of the
two Japanese toylines that provided most of the 1984 molds. One thing about
Diaclone is that it was very aggressive about multiple color runs. Pretty
much every mold had two to four color schemes available. (Microman, the
other main line drawn from, was less aggressive about this, but still had a
few color variants.) In working out how Diaclone would become Transformers,
Hasbro designers decided that there would just be one color scheme per mold
for the Autobots, but didn't nail down all the final color schemes before
some of the catalogs and tie-in stuff had to be approved. Bluestreak was a
notable example of a late change, as many early materials featured a blue,
silver, and white deco with yellow "horns" in robot mode, instead of the
silver car with black and red bits in robot mode that we eventually got. I
even have a "3-D puzzle" of Bluestreak that uses this color scheme. However,
all of the official Bluestreak toys were the silver car.
A few years later, as the collector market started to come into
existence, rumors spread that there were a handful of "oops" Bluestreaks that
used leftover Diaclone toys. This was actually plausible, given the
existence of red Bumblebees and yellow Cliffjumpers (I actually saw some of
those on store shelves, but wasn't interested enough to pay mall store
markup, especially since my source of income at the time was a paper route).
At least one purported genuine in-package example cropped up, but was later
revealed to be a fraud, an old Diaclone taped back into a Bluestreak box in
such a way that it looked kinda like a factory sealed box. So, customs
aside, the only U.S. release "blue Bluestreak" was a Spychanger, who didn't
really have the blue Bluestreak colors. (A Masterpiece Bluestreak did get a
Japanese release in blue Bluestreak colors in 2015, but I've never actually
seen it.)
Cut to the recent past. Hasbro's been mining Diaclone alternate color
schemes for various Generations Selects toys (such as Tigertrack or
Lift-Ticket) and other exclusives (Target exclusive Road Rage). A blue
Bluestreak was kind of inevitable given that pattern.
But calling it (Autobot) Silverstreak? Brilliant. Bluestreak is
silver, and Silverstreak is blue.

Packaging: While it's in the standard Buzzworthy trade dress, it's in
the shape of Legacy Deluxe boxes, and has the Legacy logo on the top panel as
well as on the back under the renders and on the right under the robot mode
art. So it's a Legacy toy.
The robot mode art is on the right side rather than the left side, in
keeping with the Buzzworthy trade dress, and there's no Cybertronian writing
nor is there a QR code on the outside of the box. The instructions use
apricot as the highlight color, as other Buzzworthy toys do, but they do have
the Legacy logo on the cover panel.

AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT SILVERSTREAK
Assortment: F4051
Altmode: Not-Datsun sportscar
Transformation Difficulty: 15 steps
Previous Name Use: None (several uses of just "Silverstreak" in the early 00s)
Previous Mold Use: Gen:ER (repeatedly)

Packaging: Five ties hold the robot to the card, plus the roof and doors
are shoved through a small hole and I ended up popping a door off to get the
figure free (it's possible the doors were attached after the figure was
placed on the card). Two ties hold the rifle, and the shoulder weapons are
held in the bottom corners by bent-out loops of the card (the bottom panel
needs to be untaped to slide them out, so pretty secure even if someone has
small enough hands to reach into the open window).

Color Swaps: Red becomes white, clear light blue becomes smoky gray,
black stays black (although there seems to be two batches of black used at
random, as some black plastic glows dark teal under UV and the rest does
not). The car body shell gray parts are dark blue, while the robot-only
gray plastic is white.

Paint Apps: A lot of gloss dark blue paint, covering most of the
shoulders, most of the head, and the non-window parts of the shins and roof
backpack. The face is silver with bright blue eyes, and the helmet horns are
painted yellow. The parts of the upper torso (hood) that are matte black on
Bluestreak are dark silver here, with a no-outline red Autobot symbol printed
in the center of the upper chest. The front grille and the thin bumper line
are painted matte black. The taillights on the toes are painted red, with
matte black on the bit between them (same as Bluestreak). No paint on the
wheel hubs, they used up the budget on the shoulders I guess.
In vehicle mode, the hood is all dark silver, but the rest of the body
shell is dark blue. The lack of paint on the hubs does hurt the overall
look, though...I'll probably do something about that. Under normal (for me)
room lighting the dark blue is a bit too dark, it looks better in sunlight or
other really bright light, where the blue is more obviously blue.

Mold Changes: This toy has the modified knees seen on Prowl, rather than
the version used on Bluestreak. No other mold differences.

Other Notes: As happens with most versions of this mold, one of those
panels on the inner face of the boots was inserted sloppily and the mushroom
peg damaged so that it pops out really easily. I also had trouble getting
the shoulders inside the car mode, I think it was a slightly misaligned pin.
I have to turn the head sideways in vehicle mode or the left forearm
won't stay tabbed into its slot on the door, because the 3mm stud gets pushed
on just enough to dislodge the iffy tab and slot.

Overall: It's neat to have an affordable version of an infamous (in
certain circles) color scheme, but I think the QC may be slipping.

Dave Van Domelen, may do DK-2 Guard next, another Diaclone alternate
color scheme (this time for the Ironhide mold).

In article <t3ql86$cv5$1@hope.eyrie.org>,
Dave Van Domelen <dvandom@eyrie.org> wrote:
> Mold Changes: This toy has the modified knees seen on Prowl, rather than
>the version used on Bluestreak. No other mold differences.

Correction, it has the Smokescreen chest, not the Prowl/Bluestreak
chest.

Dave Van Domelen, notes that parts painted black aren't as obviously
different....