Dave's Bootleg Rant: Roadkill Caeser (knockoff Roadcaeser) Sliding Board King Kong (knockoff Actionmaster Jazz) Okay, the packaging called it something like Space Warrior, but *I* call it Roadkill Caeser. It fits better. I got both of these through David Kolodny-Nagy, he intermittently posts sales of knockoffs to a.t.t and now a.t.t.m. CAPSULES Roadkill Caeser: In case my pet name isn't a clue, this is the textbook case of a shoddy knockoff. Ultra-cheap plastic, mold errors, flaky stickers, weird colors, etc. Worth the $10 I paid, though, if you consider it as a puzzle. }-> Also has a copy of the original Japanese instructions. Sliding Board King Kong: Pretty good knockoff. Hand holes are a tiny bit too large for the pegs, so grip is loose, but not fatally so. Very little paint and one sticker, so ideal for a painting project. Again, about worth the $5 I paid. RANTS Roadkill Caeser The merged form, which required the drilling of an extra hole and use of some poster putty to put together, is about ten inches tall. The arms are kind stubby and the thighs are huge, but not as bad as I was expecting for a robot formed from three cars...one each for the legs and one for everything else. Blacker, the top robot, transforms a little like Onslaught at the legs for accepting Braver and Raster as shins, but of course, they're significantly bigger than Combaticons...closer in size to Nightbeat. Blacker also gets the huge chestplate like Onslaught does, to hide the weirdness of his shoulders and hips. In fact, in many ways Raster and Braver are like Nightbeat, although the legs are independently movable (and hellishly floppy on this knockoff). Blacker (black car with red torso in robot mode) is a purple car in this version, with black torso and head. Braver (red car with dark blue torso) is red with black here, and Raster (yellow car with black torso) is also red with black. ALL accessory pieces are yellow in the knockoff. where they were multicolored in the original. The only touches of paint are on the faces, and the only original stickers are on the chestplate. The knockoff company, apparently deciding to violate trademarks with gusto, plastered the toy with corporate logos to give a NASCAR feel. Unfortunately, the glue used is as cheap as everything else on this toy, and half the stickers fell off in the package. For those with access to the original and who want to know what specific pieces are malformed or missing, here's a list: Missing peg-holes - All four holes for securing chestplate, right leg holes for securing shinguard/foot. Fortunately, the plastic is so cheap that it was pretty easy to drill a new hole for the shinguard. I don't know how doable new chest holes will be, haven't tried yet. Misaligned peg-holes - Peg and hole for affixing Road Caeser's face to Blacker's face don't line up. You'll need to use tape or poster putty to keep it on. Missing pegs - Two pegs at bottom of chestplate for securing to upper legs are missing (at least, if the instruction sheet is to be believed). Missing Brainmasters - No Brainmasters at all, the faces are fixed onto the heads (although the cabins for the Brainmasters to sit in the cars are still there). However, given the quality of the plastic used here, it's probably a good thing they didn't try to do Brainmasters. Also, because they didn't need the doors for admitting the Brainmasters to the heads, the chests were remolded flat, which means that even if holes were drilled in Blacker's chest, the pegs from the chestplate might not reach them enough to hold. As crummy as the gestalt mode is, the individual robots are even worse. The joints are so floppy they can hardly stand up in robot mode, and they have huge cracks in them when in car mode. Presuming you can get them to stand, though, each has a sword, a gun and a shield. Blacker: Largest sword, forms the core of the combined tri-sword that Road(kill) Caeser carries. The gestalt's head turns into a double-barrelled cannon for Blacker in both car and robot modes (it clips to the shield in car mode) and the chestplate forms Blacker's huge shield. Raster & Braver: Each has a dinky sword, the two of which form the hilt of the supersword. The fists of the gestalt turn into pistols for these guys, and the shinguards become long shields. Overall: It's a crummy knockoff, but if you can get it for $10 and don't have the real thing, go for it. Sliding Board King Kong It's not clear from the packaging, but I think they mean "King Kong with Sliding Board." That, or this is Sliding Board, and the Rad knockoff they also do (and which is also on the front card art) is King Kong. The back has an exact copy of the instructions for Jazz with Turbo Board Actionmaster. It even calls the toy Jazz. The toy is made of reasonably good plastic, with the only significant degradation of quality being that the hip pin, which is metal in real Actionmasters, is orange plastic here, so I guess I need to be careful lest I break off a leg. On the other hand, I find the plastic used on the body and limbs to almost be a little better than the brittle stuff used in true Actionmasters. It's a hard plastic, but not brittle, feels sturdy. I don't have a real Turbo Board to compare to Sliding Board, but for the most part the knockoff is a good one. Done in hot magenta, with purple trigger, black gun and wheels, it seems to perform about as well as most Actionmaster partners do, although the spring on the front axle keeps it from moving freely. The small gun is also hot magenta. The figure itself has very ligth grey torso and thighs, with everything else being a sort of teal. There's a bit of silver and red paint on the face, and one ill-fitting sticker on the chest, and that's it. This baby's getting a coat of paint when I have time. As mentioned in the Capsule, the hands are a little too big, resulting in a loose fit for the gun. All the joints, though, are nice and tight. Overall, if you're into Actionmasters, you might want to look into getting one of these, especially if you don't have a real Jazz or Rad. Dave Van Domelen, hopes to get the time to take Roadkill to the machine shop some day soonish....