The Classics line gives us yet another tribute to Generation One Hot Rod. Classics revives the original Generation One characters but with more up-to-date designs and looks. Hot Rod returns as his original look and style but now he is fully articulate and can bend his elbow sections and knee joints.

Robot mode looks very nice but the first thing that draws your attention is the chest area, there's no Autobot insignia? in fact the only Autobot insignia on the character is the rub-sign on the top of the roof of vehicle mode which makes the robot mode look a little unfinished. It makes you wonder why there is no Autobot insignia on the chest because its part of the character and his heritage.

The new design of Hot Rod still manages to resemble his original G1 toy image yet now Hot Rod has the ability to be more flexible rather than just a 'Brick Transformer' that his original toy counter-part was. Classic Hot Rod can bend his knee joints and his elbow joints and his waist section is also able to rotate as well. The face looks a bit like the original look of Hot Rod yet its also different and perhaps a little small and maybe should have been just that little bit bigger.

Many features of the original Hod Rod toy are also present here in the new design such as the design of the leg area and also the flame deco on the front of vehicle mode. Hot Rod also comes with his 'hand saw' that we all saw him use in the original -Transformers : The Movie- cartoon but for some odd reason the box art and instructions seem to label this as a communicator instead of it actually being a saw. Its very odd because it looks nothing like a communicator yet resembles a saw.

Vehicle mode looks fantastic and is almost identical to his original G1 toys vehicle mode. The vehicles engine is shown on the bonnet of the car and there are flames at the front just like the original toy. The back of the Hot Rod also has the wings/fins that the original toy had as well.

The main section of the vehicle mode has clear blue windows which upon closer inspection show that inside is an actual dash-board and steering wheel with chairs. The roof also has an old-school style G1 Autobot Rub symbol which you need to rub with your finger to reveal the Autobot insignia.

Transformation is fairly simple as the legs need to be folded and slot into the waist area of robot mode. The arms fold inwards while the roof rotates and the chest folds outwards. Not to difficult to transform and also is very close to his original G1 Transformation minus the difficult part sliding the head and neck area that the original toy had.

Paint work is hard for the classics line as it seems it depended on how the staff at Hasbro felt while doing the work. A lot of the Classics line has good paint work but its also reported of a lot of unhappy people who went and bought Classics straight off the shelf and found parts missing paint applications. One of the worst cases of this was 'Starscream's' having only one shoulder area painted and the other left grey. Most Classic Hot Rod toys seem to have a decent amount of good paint application but the face area does seem a little rushed and slightly sloppy in places (the yellow sections above the eyes for example) but aside from a few small places the toy has good paint applications all around.

Hot Rod came Mint-On-Sealed-card and followed the standard Classics look and design. He was displayed in vehicle mode with a small picture of the robot mode face at the bottom of the page. The back of the box has images of both robot and vehicle mode and his stats.

An amazing update of the original 20+ year old toy and really we should thank Hasbro for releasing these figures. Its a sad fact that the Classics line is practically being dropped for the new TF Movie toys as already Classics has given us fantastic figures such as Starscream, Skywarp, Gun Megatron and Jetfire yet it appears the line is coming to a close before it even got warmed up. If your a huge fan of Hot Rod then this is a must for you and if not then he's still worth it as Hot Rod is and always will be a huge part of the History of the Transformers.