Nope, there are indentations on the opposite side that lock onto pegs on the doors for car mode.
In car mode, the slots in the pic are facing inwards towards the torso piece that's folded in. I tried to see if the was supposed to line-up with the slots, but they don't fit and it would also cause the torso piece to stick out...

 

Odd - ya got me then, does it show up on the concept art?

 

I've never noticed it, but then again I haven't looked that closely...

 

It's not a slot. the detailing of the pieces around it suggest a slot, but it really is nothing more than a hollow part.

 

That's what I was thinking. Thanks for the clarification!

 

Okay, so I read through this thread and I haven't seen anyone mention how his feet wheels are far too small. I enjoy imagining Transformer figures in my head and creating schemes for how the correct parts would go where on the movie designs. But I can't figure out how they could possibly get the right wheel size for the feet in a toy. Even if they used faux wheels, they'd be too large to fit in vehicle mode. Any ideas?

And I'm finally getting my Sidearm Sideswipe in a few days. Sorry for reviving a dead thread 

 

Are you referring to the diameter of the tire, or the thickness of the tire?

 

sidearm swipe is the best movie swipe if you ask me

 

Both I guess, but mostly diameter.

The best comparison I can see is with the head. The wheels should be twice as tall as the head, but on the toy its barely the same height.

(I just found these on Google. I don't know who's custom that is)

 

Well, I understand your point - but a.) it's a worms eye view, so the wheels look bigger than they are already & b.) there really isn't room for anything else on this mold.

I do wish, however, that they'd have used the system from TFP BB 1st Ed's arms & made a wrap-around for his ankle details, but I have no idea how to have made that work.

 

This is the best screenshot I could find. I squared the wheels in red so you can see just how oversized the feet wheels are

I realize that doing this successfully on a toy would be nearly impossible. And that's why I'm frustrated. It means the chances if us getting a Sideswipe with accurate feet will never happen.

 

Fair enough

 

Mine just came in the mail. After fiddling with him a bit, I find he's a sweet figure and the too small wheels aren't as bad as I thought. But I'm definitely gonna have to do that head-transformation mod and see what I can do about his knees and hips.

 

Man..that mold is it..im not sure what your seeing that you dont like. When I look at that HFTD figure and the cg models above..its pretty DAMN good if you ask me.

 

Oh, don't get me wrong. I love the figure, and its an absolutely fantastic mold. The only problems are that the leg articulation (hip, knee, etc.) is terrible and the head scrapes a bit when transforming him. Both of those can be fixed with a bit of modding. Anything else is only a small nitpick.

 

Is there any way to transform this without scratching the paint off of the head?

 

The whole wheel thing is just down to the exaggerated proportions of the CGI model. ILM resize the vehicle bits for robot mode to look aesthetically pleasing - Optimus is a good example of this, with his chest windows being much smaller in robot mode (with the ROTF Leader class figure showing how they'd realistically be sized).

Matt Booker provided a tutorial to fix it on his blog: Sidearm Sideswipe Head Fix Mod, Part 1