Vehicle mode is a sportscar. This mode looks very nice, and is my personal favorite of the original Car Brother's (X-Brawn, Side Burn, and Prowl) vehicle modes. The paint detailing is wonderful, and the light blue "flames" on the front and sides of the car look great. The silver-and-red engine looks VERY cool. There is not that much actual mold detailing in this mode, however, which is rather dissapointing. Luckily, this is mostly covered up by the flame detailing. There are practically no extras in this mode whatsoever (although Side Burn's missile stored on the underside of the car may be a bit obvious from a side view of the right side of the vehicle, since it sticks out a bit from the rest of the underside). The clear plastic used, however, isn't dark enough to blot out the very obvious robot parts on the inside of the car; a darker-tinted plastic would have made this mode look quite a bit better in that respect. Still, this is a very nice mode overall.
    One note about Side Burn's transformation: It is EXTREMELY hard, especially when transforming from robot to vehicle mode, since you have to get all the pieces in just the right place. Even after transforming it several times, it still takes me quite a while to transform this guy. In fact, it gets to the point of being frustrating sometimes. Because of this, I'd only recommend Side Burn to those who are patient with transforming their TFs, despite how cool he looks.
    Robot mode is a bit of a dissapointment when compared with the vehicle mode. It's not particularly bad, but there are car extras everywhere in this mode. Large car panels hang off of Side Burn's back, with no position to "lock" into, and there's also the entire roof of the car attached to Side Burn's left arm. I suppose it could be used as some kind of shield, but it's still rather weak. One of the car wheels also sticks out rather blatantly under Side Burn's upper right arm. The front car bumper is attached to Side Burn's right shoulder, as a kind of shoulder panel, but it's rather flat and long, so it tends to snap off its ball joint easily during transformation. Side Burn's other extras in this mode are also long and thin, so it would be rather easy for someone young to break those parts. Because of this fact and his hard transformation, I would NOT recommend giving Side Burn to a youngin' under 10 or so, even though the box says "Ages 5 and up". On the positive side, Side Burn is very articulated in this mode, with several ball joints on each of his arms and legs. His chest looks very nice with the car engine on it, and because of Side Burn's overall asymmetry, he looks like a "Transmetal 2" version of a car. His face is very nice-looking, with a "targeting reticle" over one eye and a few asymmetrical patches of transparent plastic on his forehead. I'm not sure I like the hot pink used for his eyes and the dot on his waist, however... Side Burn's feet are rather small in this mode, which makes it a bit hard for him to stand up and stay up in this mode, especially since he's slightly back-heavy.  The white paint on his upper legs also doesn't quite match the white plastic used for the inside of them, but this is a relatively minor problem that you probably wouldn't notice at a first glance. Side Burn has not just one, but two weapons in this mode- a transmetal silver "scissor"-like gun made of one piece (which can be stored on his robot rear in car mode, even though the instructions don't say this), and a missle launcher made of the rear car bumper. Rather odd, but still functional. The chrome red Autobot symbol on Side Burn's left arm looks pretty neat aesthetically, albeit slightly more curved than the usual Autobot symbol is.
    Side Burn has an excellent vehicle mode, but his robot mode is quite a bit extra-ridden. Although he's not that bad of a toy, because of his very hard transformation and the fact that he's relatively easy to break, I'd only recommend him for older Transfans.

Review by Beastbot

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