(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to Autobot Alliance Special Ops Jazz. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Autobot Alliance Special Ops Jazz here.)

    Wheelie redecoed from Jazz is one of those ingenious bits that you never really think would work until it actually happens, and then, voila! It works! The car mode is pretty much spot-on for what Wheelie would have taken if he had gotten an "Earth form". Wheelie's primary colors of orange and a darker pumpkin orange still stay true on this toy, with the darker color mostly confined to the rims of his vehicle mode, complementing the regular orange quite well and giving his vehicle mode quite a bit more visual interest. In fact, there's quite a few paint apps of several different colors on Wheelie, both to help replicate his G1 color layout and to give him more variety. All essential details are painted; his G1-esque pastel blue stripe down the middle of his front hood; his headlights are painted yellow, his taillights red; and his rear windows are painted silver, a detail that's often left out because of paint budgets. Although the dark bluish gray plastic used for Wheelie's... wheels... and a few other minor parts looks decent enough and serves as a nice dark neutral color for Wheelie's other colors to go against, the light milky gray that's mostly revealed in his robot mode is just the same blah shade of the color that it's always been. Plus, it's light enough where it doesn't go all that well with the somewhat light main orange plastic color.
    Wheelie has two mold changes for this version. First, the obvious one-- his head, which is a straight-up sculpt of his G1 cartoon head design, and looks fantastic. All the essential elements and paint apps are there, from the gunmetal gray "hat brim" to Wheelie's goofy grin and blue eyes. Instead of Jazz' gun, Wheelie also comes with a (non-firing) slingshot accessory, which of course fits his character, being his signature weapon. (That said, because of how the weapon is stored in vehicle mode there's an odd peg on one end of it, and it does stick out a teensy bit below the front fender in vehicle mode-- though this only becomes obvious if you look at the mode from a view level with the wheels.)
    "GDO" Wheelie is an absolutely ingenious remold of Jazz, and works amazingly well. I wish his light gray was a bit darker or a more metallic shade, but otherwise he's a surprisingly faithful update to the original, and hey! We finally get a Wheelie toy that isn't tiny! An incredibly easy recommendation for those who have a soft spot in their hearts for the little rhyming twerp, and my favorite of the "GDO" deluxes.

Review by Beastbot

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