Toy Review: Combiner Wars Drag strip

In this post, We'll be looking at Hasbro Generations Combiner Wars Drag Strip.

It's not a kit, so it'll probably take less :P


I was contemplating on whether to get the superion bots 1st or the Menasor bots. Since I'm a car nut 1st and plane second, I decided to go with the Stunticons. I prefer the more varied colors compared to the sea of white and red of the aerial bots. Objectively though, Superion is a better engineered toy.

Drag Strip takes the form of a formula car. Actually, he looks more like an Indycar than a formula car, especially with the wings on the "side pontoons".

image from racersites

It's a mix of yellow and purple plastic with a touch of purple paint thrown. The purple paints blends very well with the plastic IMO.

The back is just one solid sea of yellow plastic. Molded are the lower diffuser and a mysterious port.

I don't think readers will bite at your "mysterious port" line

On top is a decepticon symbol, and what seems to me is fuel port on the left side.

The underside has some techy details, and more importantly, an almost flat underbelly. Essential for race cars as it assists with aerodynamics and provides a clean trail of air to the diffuser.

ugh , car bores....-_-

Transforming him is simple. Very very simple. It's the opposite of how the 2009 generations toy transforms. You simply, move the side pontoons out.

Extend the legs, separate them and rotate the waist 180.

Flip the car nose 90 degrees, flip and rotate the head, and then rotate the nose cone 180.

Tab the nose code to the peg on top of the air inlet.

And flip the hands out.

Uhm... this should have been in step 1...

And we are done. Simple and intuitive. Also, unlike the Fall of Cybertron figures, which felt like tupperware lids, combiner wars are nice and solid. They don't feel flimsy at all. Seems Hasbro's plastic choice is lot better now. I would not say starting at Prime RID though, since Beast Hunter Optimus has the same cheap feeling plastics for the grey and red bits.

Also,  his head sculpt is unique, as it has 2 "tear drops" ala Destiny Gundam and a rounded, instead of a square head. He was all yellow in the cartoons, but Hasbro added purple bits in his shoulders and thighs to break it up a little. I honestly would prefer yellow shoulders and purple forearms... but that's just me.

bloody mary?

Articulation is what surprised me. I've been reading the threads and I never bother to read about how he has bicep swivels! I assumed the ball jointed shoulders did those. The hips one mine are a bit loose though

How come it can do this if the hips are loose??

Accessories, he comes with a collector card... which I lost. His hand/foot gun....

and a short sword. Seems all stunticons comes with melee weapons rather than guns.

Sword is easy handled enough. The hand/foot gun though is rather heavy for the figure. But the shoulder joints are strong and tight enough for him to hold it up.

h sword has a peg that allows Drag Strip to hold it as a gun... with no barrel... sound familiar...

shall I be the one for you.. who pinches you softly.. but sure

Height comparison, Drag Strip is pretty much the average sized deluxe. He looks small when I initially saw him in pics. Here he is with Bleeding edge and FOC optimus.

Since he is a scramble city combiner, he can turn into a foot or an arm. For arm mode, simply move flip is head up so that he is looking at his nose cone, join the feet together, move his arms up

like so...

transform the hand/foot gun into hand mode..

and peg it into the mysterious hole...

flip the connector and voila! Hand mode!

or for your standards, a girlfriend!

As far as Drag Strip's hands for arm mode, there seem to be slots on the body where the shoulders loosely sits onto. It doesn't peg in though, so you'll probably need to adjust it after posing him in arm mode.

Arm mode is pretty big. He was shorter than Iron Man in bot mode,

Also, it's been noted that the recent generations wave of figures have ports where you can mount it to a tamashii stage. My tamashii stage is currently being used to prop up my revoltech Anubis and 1/144 psycho zaku... but since the peg size is similar to the standard revoltech per, they would connect as well.

Using revoltech stand...

as cliche'd as iron man punching the ground pose

Overall, I like it. It's solid construction and heft makes it feel more inline to me with the 2009 deluxes, even compared to the modern IDW deluxes (like rattrap). But, it costs 800 pesos here, which if I recall, is 100 more compared to the deluxes of yore (warpath, scourge).When compared to them, you can't but feel a little disappointed. But compared to the FOC figures and early prime figures (not the 1st editions), this to me feels better. Miles better. More solid than that IDW deluxe megatron.