^This.

I call him Lardass the Destroyer.

 

I find it a bit weird that so many people argue that rhinos and bulls are dangerous and aggresive animals, that is beside the point.
They still don't hunt animals for food and thus they are not predators.

 

Yeah, this.

zmog

 

It's so Predaking could be a visual representation of the food chain.

Tantrum and Headstrong are the feet. The predators are on top of them, denoting their superiority in the chain.

And yes, I just pulled that out of my ass, you're not to take it seriously, even if it does work.

 

While they could be a brass section, the Constructicons already have that covered:

 

The Technobots have a car, motorcycle, and drill. Unless I'm missing something their team name doesn't really describe their altmodes either.

 

There have been cases were herbivores have resorted to predation for whatever reasons.

 

Cars, drills and motorcycles are technology!

 

Komodo dragon would have been far off. It's no mammal. It would only fit my purely fiction Reptobots *grin*

Anyway, Predacons were originally meant for Bandai. The name 'Predacons' would have been menacing. Can't think of other name that would invoke a more superior feel on it

 

A) Afterburner isn't a motorcycle. It's a common error.

B) the key point with the Technobots is that they are technologically advanced, futuristic-looking cars, drills, jets and 2-wheeled assault vehicles. Presumably that was the only unifying feature Budiansky saw in the toys, and decided to go with "Technobots" as a concept.

Though... according to the original long bio for Computron, the Technos were made hundreds of years ago, during the wars on Cybertron, so they're actually considerably less advanced than their name might suggest.  

zmog

 

Cool, cool, cool.
Two wheels + Engine = Motorcycle
To me Afterburner's a fancy motorcycle with big guns  

Given that most of the season three guys turn into some sort of futuristic... thing, I guess it never hit me. Thanks for clearing that up, I honestly never saw it that way.

 

It just irks me a bit when people call him a motorcycle because that suggests scale issues and that someone should be riding him, but when if you really look at the alt-mode it's pretty clear that he's got a cockpit and is actually not structured that much like a motorcycle at all. In a way, he kind of reminds me more of the old Cobra STUN from GIJOE.

But that's cool. I was just being anal about it and needed to point it out.  

As for the Technos, that's a pretty good point. I saw them on the toy shelves first, so it was in the context of all sorts of other Transformers, some of whom were more contemporary or normal vehicles... but when they were introduced in the cartoon, they were surrounded by a cast of characters who were ALL "future-cars" so the motif for the team does sort of get camouflaged. Though on the cartoon, they were also created by super-genius Grimlock to be the ultimate high-tech team, so I guess the idea was that they were more "advanced" because they were invented by a super-genius?

zmog