Masterpiece toys are meant to emulate the original toy's appearance in the original G1 cartoon accurately, and Masterpiece Prowl's toy certainly emulates his original G1 Nissan police car mode extremely accurately, down the point where it almost looks like an enlarged version of his G1 toy in this mode. (Prowl is roughly voyager-sized, though considerably more complex than your average voyager, as is the case with Masterpiece toys.) The proportions are spot-on, and with the exception of the cannons which can easily be seen inside Prowl's tinted windows, there aren't any robot mode extras at all, either. (For a normal retail toy the visible cannons wouldn't really bug me, but for a Masterpiece toy I was hoping he'd have visual drivers' seats visible inside.) Prowl is quite literally COVERED with paint in this mode, whether it's white or black paint, to give him a more "car-like" finish and look, which I think is a really awesome touch. His overall color scheme is white and black with a bit of silver and red; it's not super-awesome or original, but it certainly fits a police car and are Prowl's signature colors, with all the little deco bits like the slight bulge in the side black stripes above the rear tires and the "sweep" in the center front of his hood are all here, replicated perfectly from the G1 toy. The "HIGHWAY PATROL POLICE" door emblems are also copied, but in a bit more modernized of a font and a bit smaller proportionally; his other "HIGHWAY PATROL" signs from the G1 toy have been eliminated for his Masterpiece toy for a cleaner look, and I have to say it looks pretty nice. I do miss a painted license plate, however-- that definitely should've been filled in. The orange and dark red taillights and headlights are a nice touch and contrast against the black well, and his transparent red sirens are also a nice shade of the color. A really neat feature is that Prowl's gun has an alterante handle that allows it to peg in behind these sirens, in order to give Prowl a bit of firepower in this mode. Both of his doors can swing out, though there's only robot bits inside so I don't know why you'd want to. Although they look it, it's also worth noting that Prowl's tires are NOT of the rubbery type of plastic-- which I'm okay with, given the tendency for rubbery tires to split over time.
    Prowl's transformation to robot mode is a bit complex-- as is the case with most Masterpiece toys-- but the end result is absolutely worth it. Prowl here looks about as accurate to the G1 cartoon as you can get, with pretty much no proportional maladies whatsoever (his doors are a tad small, but if you were to make them larger they'd be too big for the car mode, so....). He's got the hood-chest, an excellent and detailed spot-on headsculpt, well-proportioned arms with the tires behind the shoulders, the door wings... it's pretty much all good. The roof of his car mode does sit behind his back, and if you look at him from a side view, it is a little far back, but given how it stays out of the way and how well it folds up, this is a minor quibble at best. I love love LOVE how his legs transform, giving us G1-accurate legs while also giving him a wide range of motion at the ankles, complete with fold-out panels to keep the visible gaps in his feet to a minimum! Those feet are the most well-engineered part of this entire toy, in my opinion, and that's saying something. He's also got little fold-out heels to keep him stable. I will say that Prowl's cannons are too small proportionally, however-- I don't want them to be obnoxiously oversized like they were on the G1 toy, but perhaps about twice the size of what they are on this toy would have been ideal. They're just too small to look like formidable launchers, here. Gunmetal gray makes itself known in this mode on some of Prowl's robot bits, adding another nice color to the scheme which complements the black and contrasts against the white well. The red headcrest and blue eyes are also spot-on and look great against the fairly serious look on his face. The other couple of paint apps on his waist look nice against the black as well. As you'd expect from a Masterpiece toy, Prowl has incredible articulation-- he can move at the neck (at two points), shoulders (at two points), elbows (at three points), wrist rotation, movement at the base of the fingers on each hand (all as one piece), rotation at the waist, and movement at the hips (at three points), hip "flaps", knees (at two points), and ankles (at two points). Given how well-balanced he is, this means you get him into a ton of awesome poses. As you'd expect from his finger movement, Prowl's gun also plugs into a slot for it in the palms of his hands, with the fingers closing around the barrel to secure it in place-- it's not quite as secure as a simple peg system, but it does its job and looks better than a simple fist hole.
    For those wanting an updated version of G1 Prowl, you can't reasonably ask for a better toy than this. Sure, it has some VERY minor issues, like the small shoulder cannons that are visible in vehicle mode, but any downsides are nitpicky when compared to the overall product, which looks amazingly accurate in both modes. He IS pretty expensive for the size, though, so this is definitely something aimed more at collectors, especially when you consider the transformation-- this isn't a toy for young kids.

Review by Beastbot

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