If it were somehow possible to combine the best aspects of Hellion and Toro, you'd have a hell of a Cliffjumper. They both do some things well and other things terribly. I wouldn't buy a re-tooled MP-45 for any amount of money, and might even decline a free one. But that's me. Thankfully, while FT has been going more aggressively toon, that hasn't yet led to them being willing to create deformed figures. FT has had the occasional misfire but Hunk and Sheridan both make me pretty excited to think about what they will do with minibots. Although I really do like the DX9 version, I'd be really curious to see if FT could improve on their Powerglide.

 

I have absolute faith that FT will produce a great Cliffjumper.

 

Meanwhile I'll expect FT to produce an over or under engineered toon figure that has outdated articulation, poor quality, paint chipping, lots of thin metal rods, and many people praising it .

 

I expect you won’t like to either way.

Poor quality? Sounds like you tried to pad the list with one too many descriptors. It’d be hard to argue any other 3rd party or official company having a more consistent high quality output.

I’ll wait to see it before I praise anything but it won’t be hard to beat the current competition.

 

I'd be willing to give them a chance, since their Minibots now seem light years better than their first pass at Seaspray.

 

Chibi. I mean He doesn't look like a Porsche on the show at all. I thought he was like a Honda Hatchback or something when I was a kid. I have XTB's Toro and the back pack on that guy is ridiculous. I just don't think Cliff form the toon is a 935. I hope they make him Chibi to go with MP 45. If you prefer the 935 there are a couple options out there for you already. I want a 100% Toon accurate Cliff that is fun to transform and doesn't have his hiking gear strapped to his back.

 

I'm waiting to see an official prototype pic from FT before making a decision on this guy.

I didn't buy Hellion because of his way too dainty/gappy hips.
I didn't buy Toro because of that massive backpack.

Here's hoping FT can make a complete CJ with very little backpack, and solid hips.

 

I'm curious what height FT Cliffy will be...closer to MP-21 size or MP-45. If Spindrift 2.0 is the same size as 1.0, then judging by the outline of Cliffy in the OP he will be closer to MP-21 size.

 

After FT’ mass shifting magic with Roadking, does anyone think the FT wizards will give us a real world Porsche mode and a chibi mode?

 

This is the question I'm asking as well - especially as I still prefer MP-21 and the realistic alt mode.

 

You mean a regular dimension and chibi dimension Porsche in the same alt mode? That'd be interesting to see. You couldn't really swap out parts that were common to both because of proportions, and you only have so much volume to work with in a chibi alt mode. With all the folding, volume ends up being the limiting factor in terms of design, unless you don't mind a wobbly legged mess.

 

Really hope note. Gimmicks like that are why newer Takara release have such huge backpacks. Sunstreaker, Optimus, Bumblebee... for the sake of opening doors and sound effects and multiple alt modes we end up with so much kibble with nowhere for it to go. Keep it nice and clean and just make a call on alt mode - chibi or real just pick one and run with it. I honestly expect chibi given their Brawn, Beachcomber and the official Bumblebee. Mini bots seem to tend more towards chibi these days. Not my favourite decision but it will be what it will be.

 

I'd love to see a clean, tidy robot mode that's as close to the character model as possible. I would think that'd be more possible with a chibi altmode, but who knows. MP-45 still has a bunch of kibble, after all. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to see what they come up with. It's probably too much to hope for a CJ without a backpack, but a man can dream.

 

I hope it’s not some super deformed car. Ugh. Please.

It’ll be funny though if he’s bigger than old Bee but shorter than new Bee. I would rather this be the case anyways.

 

Hope the wait to find out won't be too long.

 

I’m hoping for Chibi vehicle. The 3P Cliffjumpers with the accurate cars don’t even look like Cliffjumper to me.

I hope they do him up like their Beachcomber where the vehicle looks like the old toy with some nice detailing.

 

I never looked at CJ back in the day thought of a Porsche. If anything he looked like a Honda Civic hatchback to me which were very common then. (Actually he did remind me of pennyracers which turns out he and Bee are based on). When I see Prowl in vehicle mode it looks/feels like what I basicly seen in the toon (even the non+ version). On some level I do dig what XTB did with CJ and WC's realistic alt modes, but it's almost more of a concept or novel idea then a character portrayal (like an alternator).
To be honest the real deciding factor for me really is bot mode is 10 times more important then alt mode to me (I think I already said for me....I better repeat that) to me. It's so funny when you look at toro's big backpack and then you transform him from car mode first thing you do is crack him open and see a chibi car inside.
I'm usually not on the "ultra toon" side of things, but rules are for fools bc there are always exceptions and this ones mine. But if you do go chibi try to make it somewhat resemble what we see on screen and don't half ass it like mmc.

 

Yeah Cliffjumper is like top 3 for me, I just need them to nail the proportions and the head sculpt as priority 1.

Then I’d like a Chibi style car as priority 2, cause even in the cartoon he looked just like that.

I had no idea what type of car he was at the time either, I still wouldn’t if there wasn’t so much talk about Takara and the Porsche license.

 

Growing up, the toys, and especially Cliffjumper in the cartoon (Bumblebee did closely resemble a Volkswagen Beetle), reminded me of those itty bitty "Penny Racers", which were first made by Takara in 1978 known in Japan as "Choro-Q".

 

........and on top of all that, everyone wants him to match up with bumblebee.....and now there's two bumblebees!