Toy Review - HUBCAP (Generations Selects)
HUBCAP
Series - Generations
Sub-line - Selects
Hypo-line - War for Cybertron
Size/class - Deluxe
New/remould/redeco - Repaint and retool of Earthrise Cliffjumper
Wave - N/A
Released here - October 2020
Approximate Retail Price - $40 (EB/Zing exclusive)
Approximate Size - 1dm
Allegiance - Autobot
Alt-mode - 1980s style sports coupe
Main Features/Gimmicks - It's freaking Hubcap
Main Colours - yellow
Main Accessories - 3 piece bazooka which can divide into smaller guns and skis for car mode.
NOTE: This toy is a redeco of Earthrise Cliffjumper <---see this thread for reviews and discussion about the original mould. This thread will focus on differences.
Thoughts
YYYYYEEEEEAAAAAHHH!!! <fist pumps> <victory dance>
It's freaking Hubcap! My favourite of the 1986 Mini-Bots who was always short-changed by having zero canonical appearance in G1 - except for just one issue of the G1 manga which I didn't have access to as a kid. He certainly had no Anglophone canonical appearance until 2004 when he made a brief appearance as a background character in the Dreamwave comics. While he would continue to make minor appearances in the IDW comics, it wouldn't be until 2015's Sins of the Wreckers that Hubcap was finally - after 29 years - given a canonical spotlight appearance! And his portrayal in that series was G1-accurate too (it can be hit or miss in IDW as some TFs are very G1 accurate in their character (e.g. Thundercracker, Overlord etc.) while others can be wildly different (e.g. Swerve, Tailgate etc.)).
To make matters worse in G1, while Hubcap (such a great toy) suffered the indignation of being canonically underused, arguably the worst Mini-Bot in 1986 was badly overused. And yet Hubcap was popular enough as a toy that he even warranted a reappearance in the toyline during Generation 2. And G2 would be the last time that Hubcap ever had a toy, as Machine Wars Hubcap, along with Megaplex, are the only two characters in Machine Wars who are not based on pre-existing characters. I personally count MW Hubcap as Hubcap in my head canon, but officially he's not. So Generations Selects Hubcap is really the first new incarnation of the original G1 Hubcap character since 1993!
But what are your thoughts on Generations Selects Hubcap?
Fan-freaking-tastic. It's evident that the Earthrise Cliffjumper mould was conceived to be Cliffjumper, Hubcap and Bumblebee as even Cliffjumper contains elements of all three characters. For Hubcap it's the small spoiler. G1 Cliffjumper has a massive oversized spoiler, but even ER Cliffy was given a small spoiler which is actually accurate to Hubcap, not Cliffjumper. And both Cliffjumper and Hubcap have those rounded arms which are obviously meant for the upcoming Bumblebee toy. It's not surprising these days that HasTak pre-designs toys that they know will become different characters, which saves them money on retooling later on. The Hubcap head may have also been pretooled.
The head design is exquisite - it is undeniably Hubcap. It not only features a G1-accurate orange head and eyes (since Hubcap never appeared in the G1 cartoon he doesn't need that blue-eye rubbish), but his eyes are a different shade of orange from his face!Furthermore, his arms and legs are all jet black, as opposed to Cliffjumper which uses a slightly lighter shade of charcoal black. The black used on his rear windscreen/shield better matches Hubcap's smokey black clear windows. Some people said that the shield makes it look like the wielder is holding up a TV -- this is actually accurate to Hubcap's original extended G1 bio (bearing in mind that the tech spec bios on the toy packaging were always abbreviated versions of the original bios written by Marvel writers). According to Hubcap's original bio treatment, his windows can act as television displays (as per his Function as Communications). They've also given Hubcap a brighter shade of yellow than G1 Hubcap, but I suspect that this was done to further differentiate him from Bumblebee.
The bazooka and skis accessory admittedly doesn't make much sense for Hubcap - that's a very much for-Cliffjumper accessory. But I suspect that they had to retain it to help justify the Deluxe price point, and there probably wasn't space in the budget to give him entirely different weapons. But that's fine - I've chosen to just give him a pair of guns and set aside the rest of the bazooka (whereas my ER Cliffy just carries the whole bazooka). So you have options. $40 is on the pricier side for a Deluxe toy, but it's also only $5 above current max RRP for a Deluxe so that's fine with me. I'm personally loving this mould and can't wait for Bug Bite and Bumblebee.And heck, if they wanna give us Glyph (preferably with an accurate head), then just shut up and take my money!
Overall
A fantastic toy that finally means that every G1 Mini-Bot (ex. Bumblejumper) has now been realised as a CHUG toy!On top of that, this is just a good toy on it's own. It's not like purchasing Generations Huffer or Combiner Wars Pipes which we were just doing to tick boxes but we were never completely satisfied with those toys. Hubcap ticks a box and is a very satisfying figure. Highly recommended.
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