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Sunday 27 May 2012

Rare Toy - Drift

Shattered Glass Drift
"Even amongst the villainous hordes of the Evil Autobots, Drift is considered the most ruthless. Laws and morality have no stay with him, only money and profit...and occasionally thrills. He'd blast his own batch initiators if he were paid for the job. Or if he thought it might be fun. Typically given free rein by the Autobot leader, Optimus Prime, to complete his objectives, Drift's methods of taking out his targets are only limited by his imagination. In other words, they are almost boundless. The mercenary relishes dreaming of new ways of taking out his marks, and logging them when he reboots in the morning. Regardless of the elaborate traps he might set, he always ensures that he is there at the final move, with his finger on the trigger or hide hand on the blade."
Function: Dimensional Fragment Eliminator (Fancy-talk for hunting invaders from over universes)
Quote: "Blast 'em again to make sure they stay offline!"
Strength: 7
Intelligence: 7
Speed: 9
Endurance: 6
Rank: 6
Courage: 7
Fireblast: 9
Skill: 10
Robot Mode
Drift's robot mode is a red and black number with some white highlights in select places. He has a bi-pedal masculine robot form and of course shows traces of his vehicle mode in select places on this mode.

Drift's torso is made of a detailed black chunk of plastic with the red roof of his vehicle mode, and front windscreen attached via a hinged joint. His groin features a red cover that gives in extra colours. Drift features a pair of sword sheathes attached to his waist on either side that can be re-positioned any way on the ball point that attaches it. The sheathes hold his two smaller swords, which will be gone into in the accessories section later. Drift's back also features an extending clip that allows him to clip his larger "ancient sword" into it for storage.
Drift's head is attached to the top of his torso by a pivoting neck joint allowing him to shake his head slightly either way (until his chin hits the nodules on either side of his head. Drift's head features a silver face surrounded by a red horned helmet that also features his nose, a black chevron and other small pieces of detailing. His face also features a red chin/van dyke beard under his small sculpted mouth. Drift's eyes are painted white with black mascara, which negates the light piping gimmick from the source on the top of his head.

Drift's shoulder pads are connected to his torso by a ball joint and bar connector combination that allows them to move as much as needed, until obstructed by anything. His shoulders feature his purple Autobot insignias. His upper arms are connected to the shoulders by a pivoting joint that allows them to rotate 360 degrees either way. His elbows are created by a double joint that allows him to bend his arms in fully, and his hand is connected by a ball joint to the bottom of his lower arms. All of these joints allow Drift incredible articulation, which helps a lot when dealing with a character with swordsman traits like Drift does.
Drift's hands are sculpted with fingers and a thumb and are posed around a standard sized peg hole that allows him to hold any regular weapon, including any of the ones supplied with his toy.

Drift's upper legs are connected to his groin by a ball joint on either side that allows them to raise and rotate as needed, his upper legs also feature a rotating pivot joint  about a third of the way down that allows them to rotate 360 degrees to help him pose as required. His knees are able to bend back by about 90 degrees. The entire lower leg is made of a few connected pieces of his vehicle mode, from the rear of the vehicle and part of the roof too. This makes his legs very stable and has good weight dispersion.


Vehicle Mode
Drift's vehicle mode is a mostly red drifting race car with black tinted windows, wheels and some paint markings. He features a white Japanese style sunrise effect coming out from his front wheels and sprawling across the sides of the vehicle. He also has the Japanese symbol for "Decided" on his front to frighten his enemies (somehow).
Drift features black wheels with red inner wheels and silver tri-spoked hubcaps, black tinted headlights, several aerodynamic slits and lines etc. He has exhaust pipes at the rear, a large spolier at the back, a sculpted area for a non-existent licence plate. 
Drift's ground clearance is enough to allow him to freely roll along the floor without obstruction.
Accessories
Drift, as with most toys (and good mercenaries too) comes with several accessories...MOST of which can be stored within his body in both modes if needed!
Drift's guns are small pistols sculpted with lots of small markings all across them. These guns can be clipped into his hands by their handles. Due to these guns being originally part of the Blurr retool of the Drift figure, they can't be stored in the side sheathes and have no where else to go in vehicle mode.
Drift's smaller broadswords are silver blades with a sculpted sharp edge made of a rubberized plastic substance. The blades also feature a set of markings towards the bottom of the blade made of 6 downward arrows, three of which with the points removed. The handles are made of black plastic with a grip and hilt sculpted into them. The blades can be folded inwards, which is only really used for when he is turned to vehicle mode. The swords are stored in his side sheathes (with a specific one for each blade).
Drift's long "ancient sword" is mostly grey with a black sculpted grip as the only other colour. The sword features several sculpted details such as the "jewel" on the top of his hilt and the markings on the sword itself (the marks are the same as on the original Drift mold). This sword can be held in the extendable clip on his back, and can be help in either hand for lots of play fun!


My Final Thoughts
Oh Drift....I love you so much, I know most people hate you and anything to do with you, but I'll always love you. This figure is a repaint of his Generations counterpart with Blurr's guns added in for extra play value. He is made to resemble the Marvel comics character Deadpool somewhat (hence the extra guns). This toy was made available in 2012 as one of the Club Store exclusives, and has not as of yet appeared in any fiction (despite the 2012 Botcon story featuring several Shattered Glass characters)

I'd have to say, that I actually prefer this colourscheme for Drift over his tradition version (maybe because I like Deadpool as well) his accessories are more detailed in general that the Generations counterpart. The colours on the body itself are much bolder and brighter.

My only real complaint about Drift however is the pistols, and how they can't be stored anywhere in vehicle mode. Also related to this it has been reported that several Drift's had the wrong guns sent to them (ie they had 2 left guns instead of one of each) but since they can't be stored away, or combine with the larger gun from Blurr anyway, it doesn't matter.

Normally I'd recommend people to buy a copy of this figure, but sadly he's been sold out for a long time now, but maybe you can find him on Ebay or at a convention this summer instead?

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