Bot Reviews: Transformers: Legacy Voyager Road Hauler

You ever buy a figure for the memes? I think the last time I did that was when I purchased Generation Selects Exhaust, due to the concept of him as an illicit-substance-dealer in the circles I run in. And this time around, it led me to purchase Legacy Road Hauler (the “Road” presumably added to make the name easier to trademark), a part of the Wal-Mart exclusive Velocitron Spedia 500 sub-line. Though, to be fair, he’s a repaint of Earthrise Grapple, which was a figure I already really liked (breakable pegs aside), so I didn’t need much prodding.

Hauler’s a pretty odd character, before the memes. The Transformers Wiki, and Transformers: The Basics already sum up his real-world story pretty well, so I’ll try and keep it brief: He was an orange crane robot who appeared briefly in the first episode of the cartoon, accompanying Ratchet and Cliffjumper on a mission to tow the injured Hound to safety. He had no lines or robot mode in the episode (Cliffjumper gave him his name), and was never seen again, apparently having been written into the show by mistake. Grapple (the actual Autobot Orange Crane), would appear in the second season, and second year of the toyline, and Hauler was likely a scrapped early version of the character. But then, way later on, in 2003, when Takara reissued the original Grapple toy, it got a repaint into Constructicon-green as Hauler, with the explanation for the different colors being that a) he had a flighty personality that led him to change his own deco often, and b) he worked with the Constructicons at one point, before Megatron turned them evil. Really, the real-world backstory is the most complicated thing about him, Hauler’s only had tiny cameos ever since then, and no new toys after that 2003 G1 repaint, until now.

Anyway, the memes: Since Hauler is very technically a 1984 original character (despite not having a figure until the 21st century), he somehow wound up on the official 2019 Transformers Hall of Fame poll, with the prompt that year being to vote for the best character from the first season of the G1 cartoon, alongside big, important, A-lister names. Capitalizing on the inherent silliness of this obvious mistake, there was a grassroots fandom campaign to get Hauler into the Hall of Fame, with people bigging up his coolness and importance, despite his miniscule presence in the franchise, telling people to “Go Green.” This post from the Transformers Wiki Tumblr, in which they pretend he was present for a bunch of important franchise moments, is just one example of how fun this was. Here’s three pieces of fanart from the Twitters of Transformers Fans Wadapan, Umar Ali, and Ikkad to give you an idea of the general vibes.

Hauler didn’t win the Hall of Fame vote (Skywarp did), but fun was had, and his reputation persisted. And hey, three years later, he’s finally got a figure! So, let’s compare this exclusive to the original, and see what Justice for Hauler looks like.

Crane Mode

One interesting thing about the Velocitron Spedia 500 sub-line is that it’s themed around a giant race, and so all of the figures in it come packaged in their vehicle modes, which is a refreshing change, and if you ask me, how Transformers should always do it.

So, Hauler’s still a very pleasant construction crane, emitting vibes of a non-transforming toy you’d roll around in the sandbox. That being said, Constructicon Green, his primary color, isn’t the kind of color a construction vehicle (or toy of one) is cast in, so he’s got a bit less of that sandbox-toy vibe than Grapple did. But, all the same good sculpting is there, so the same friendly energies come with it.

The most interesting thing about this as a repaint is that they seemingly found money for more deco than Grapple had. Outside of the orange-for-green plastic swap, he’s got mostly the same black, silver, and clear blue bits (with a red Autobrand up front), but the stripes along the side of his crane (and its base) are now both yellow and black instead of just black, and he’s got a little more black near the front of his truck bed. Also, for some reason, the silver cylinders near the back of either side of the vehicle mode have a small amount of black paint at the bottom now. It’s not much, but it’s appreciated.

So, the real news here is that they fixed the big problem with the Grapple version of the tooling: The pegs at the base of his crane, that fit into the bed of the truck, have been shortened into a different shape, so they’re no longer at risk of breaking off when you transform him.

But while he’s not in danger of breaking, these shortened tabs combine with another change to introduce a slight wrinkle: The up-and-down motion of his crane arm is done via a clicky ratchet, and the joint is noticeably tighter and stiffer than on Grapple. The problem is that when you combine this with the shorter, less grippy pegs, you get a back end that likes to come undone and apart when you move that crane, which is kind of disappointing.

Still, it’s less disappointing than a figure that’ll break if you don’t make modifications, so this is the lesser of two problems (and you can always just hold onto the back of him while you move his crane, to keep it together).

And he’s worth messing around with, because he’s still got a pretty feature-laden vehicle mode. His crane can raise, pivot, and extend, and it’s got a hook that can fold away to reveal an accessory port. He comes with a big four-fingered claw you can mount there, or stash on one of his other four available accessory ports.

He’s also got a rifle you can mount on one of those ports, and a little silver cone that’s meant for his robot mode, that you can stash on his crane-arm, or turn into an obstacle on one of the other ports.

Really, it feels wrong to equip this non-violent construction vehicle with weaponry, and if there was ever a figure meant to be paired with Powerdasher Zetar, in all his relatively-friendly construction-aid yellow, it’s this guy.

Outside of that, Hauler’s only other feature is his theoretical ability to roll, which is…not present, due to a combination of the wheels being too tight, and a bit too high up from the ground. Grapple had this problem, too, but I was so enamored with the rest of him that I didn’t notice at the time.

Transformation

Hauler’s still really satisfying  to transform, and now worry-free thanks to the pegs being retooled. Basically, you flip the legs (and lower torso) down, flip the arms out, and compress the crane in a clever way, while popping the head out. It’s all about moving big chunks around, but there’s enough clever tricks and flips to keep your hands occupied. If I had one issue, it’s that flipping out his hands can be kind of tough, due to how tight the joints they’re on are. But there’s a fun way to mitigate this: Since his flipped-in hands end on weapons ports, you can plug an accessory in, and crank it to “unlock” the hands.

It’s a bug, but it feels like a feature.

Robot Mode

One of the things I loved about this tooling is how person-shaped it is. It’s the same size and dimensions as a Hasbro 6-incher, and has a very human silhouette, outside of the crane-arm-backpack and hood. I also like how G1-cartoony he is, a flexible pile of boxes. In particular, the flared bell-bottom shins and big feet strike me as a cartoony detail. He’s just got good vibes, and he feels nicely chunky in your hands.

So, the big thing in this mode is that Hauler’s got a different head sculpt from Grapple (and Inferno, Grapple’s other retool). Basically, it’s a Grapple head, but with an open-mouthed expression, like he’s yelling. Or giving a shocked gasp.

Or taking a big bite.

Or something. It’s an expression you saw a lot in the cartoon, on a big swath of characters, and picking it for this guy’s kind of funny. It’s a good-looking face, and the novelty of it’s grown on me, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a small part of me that wishes they’d just stuck with Grapple’s head, or maybe swapped it out with Inferno’s more G1-toy-accurate noggin for variety, but that’s because I’m not as much of a fan of figures meant to snapshot a very specific moment in time (like battle damage, or “reformatting” Megatrons, or an expression like this one), I prefer things to be more neutrally evergreen. Still, that’s a personal preference on my end, it’s a well-done head, and I get what they’re going for, especially since it makes every photo of him inherently funnier.

Once again in this mode, Hauler’s got more going on than a simple orange-to-green color swap. His helmet’s now black, a detail I would have preferred Grapple had (and so it’s good to see it here), and his face is toon-style gray (with blue eyes), instead of silver (which fits his very toony expression). Funny enough, the inside of his mouth is green, since we can see the joint it’s on. Outside of that, he’s got extra black rectangles on shoulders and shins, which adds more contrast than Grapple had.

Beyond that, he’s still just as impressively bendy as Grapple was, especially in the legs. He feels good to pose, and his proportions make it easy to make him really expressive. In particular, I’m still impressed that his head can rotate, despite it being nestled inside a square of plastic.

For features, he’s got the same gun, claw, and cone-shaped missile.

He can hold the gun, or you can flip away either of his fists to mount the claw (which, by the way, is still Earthrise-ramp-compatible) and missile.

The fact that his robot mode was never seen in the cartoon makes me more inclined to experiment with different configurations, and you can additionally mount his accessories on the eight ports across his body, though, again, it feels more correct to trick him out with tools, instead of weapons.

Overall

I may have gotten him for the memes, but Road Hauler’s still a legitimately good figure, chunky, fun to handle, and with a good sense of personality, inheriting all of Grapple’s strong points, and eliminating his big flaw.

On the other hand, Hauler adds a structural problem to his vehicle mode, and I kind of prefer Grapple’s head sculpt. On the other-other hand, they found the budget to give this guy a slightly nicer deco, and that structural problem’s part of a fix for an actual breakage-causing issue, so I think this guy comes out ahead of Grapple by default, even if it’s just for that last thing. Certainly, if you never got Grapple, this is the best way to experience the crane-vehicle tooling. And if you do have Grapple, and like him, well, here’s more of that good thing. Though, to be clear, if you want something really substantially different, he’s not that, he’s largely the same guy, but green.

On top of that, Road Hauler’s a little bit challenging to get, since he’s a Wal-Mart exclusive, meaning most online retailers won’t have him, and, at least locally, trying to order figures online at Wal-Mart isn’t really easily doable, so you’ve got to just check your local sightings, and hope he shows up physically. Do it for him, though, it’s time the hardest-working backgrounder in Transformers got his respect.

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