The last 1984/1985 Autobot Car guy is here in WFC Trilogy style, and it's Skids, of course, and also the WFC Trilogy is over, this is Legacy, the toyline afterwards, where we pick up the leftovers.  Poor Skids always gets left out.  He only got two lines in the original cartoon, each in a different episode and by a different voice actor.  He had way more luck in the original comic, where he actually got a solo focus issue and appeared in a few ongoing storylines afterwards!  (Of course, in the UK, Skids got displaced to Limbo for years so that Galvatron could hang around from the future, so it wasn't all sun and roses.)

Skids is a vehicle we didn't have in North America, a Honda City Turbo, which is essentially a tiny-ass hatchback.  But American writers assumed he was a mini-van.  And so he got drawn large-ish in the comics and called a "van" by other characters, but he's actually a pretty tiny car!  His original toy was pretty good at expanding to a tall height from such a small vehicle.  

Another thing about Skids is that his character model was drawn from a mistransformed toy photo.  And so his shoulders start at, like, his abs, because the toy reference had his arms hanging down from the sides.  Neither Skids recent Masterpiece toy nor his new Legacy toy try to replicate this, though it's possible to mistransform the Legacy toy's shoulders lower.  

The final thing about Skids is that he got carwashed by a cowgirl and he shuddered a bunch in pleasure.

Anyway, he has a toy now, in the first Deluxe Class wave for Transformers: Legacy!  He's finally a first wave guy, because he's the only 1984/85 guy left!  An honor, sort of!  If there was going to be a Legacy cartoon for Netflix, he might've gotten some airtime.  (There will not be, so he won't.) 

Legacy Skids transforms essentially how you'd think -- the hood becomes the chest, doors become wings, roof stays on the back, arms hide underneath.  The most interesting diversion is how his spine folds up in a zig-zag pattern to compress him more.  A lot of his car shell is translucent plastic, which may give some pause, especially how you're supposed to kind of stretch the roof into place to fit into all the tabs, but it's a pretty thick translucent plastic, so it doesn't worry too much.  He seems pretty hardy.  

Skids comes with his two arm-mounted weapons, and you're supposed to mount them ON his arms, that's why there's 5mm ports there, but the instructions only show you putting them in his fists.  He also comes with a translucent blue Energon axe, but the instructions only show him holding it horizontally like a gun.  I mean, there's a barrel, but it's clearly also an axe.  You can combine all three weapons into a mega weapon thing.  

I painted Skids' hands red at first opportunity.

Man, this last bout of new toys sure are just better-decoed versions of stuff I have.  Well, whatever, have a G1 guy instead of a BW guy this time, for variety!

Japan is probably not too big on Skids.  He, like, showed up barely in two episodes of the original cartoon, with a line of dialogue each (performed by a different voice actor for each appearance in both English and Japanese), and Japan didn't get the Marvel comics where he had a spotlight issue and several other appearances.  His toy wasn't released normally over there, as it was available not separately, but only in a boxset with Sunstreaker and Buzzsaw.  And so it's not surprising that it took so long for TakaraTomy to put out their own version of our Generations Skids.  

It IS kind of surprising that it's such a perfect deco replica of his appearance in IDW's More Than Meets The Eye comic book series.  Like, I'm not sure that's released properly over there.  I think you hafta get it on iTunes or something.  I mean, there seems to be a small fanbase in Japan for it, but I don't think that's a widespread thing.  Honestly, I don't really know.  My knowledge here is spotty.  If someone wants to fill me in on Japan's relationship with IDW Transformers comics, that'd be neato.

But, yeah, instead of trying to deco Skids hardcore like the cartoon, they made sure to MTMTE him up, including painting pink stripes across his hood despite there not being any sculpting there to suggest a need for that.  Nope, he gets those stripes (and basically everything else) off his color model for an American comic. 

And so, obviously, I had to get him.  I mean, I'd put Reprolabels on my domestic Skids to get those necessary stripes and other details on there (as you can see in the photos -- that toy ain't stock), but this TakaraTomy version is so much more comprehensive in replicating the MTMTE color model than the domestic version + stickers.  He's got the black toes and the silver ankles and the red hands and tummy, and I adore the use of pink for the stripes, as well.

Addendum: After taking a photo of the new toy next to the old one with the stickers, I tried to remove the stickers to get a more fair visual assessment of the two toys unaltered.  BAD IDEA.  Those Reprolabels are not meant to come off.  You leave a lot of silver chrome behind, and I'll probably hafta get some serious Goo-Be-Gone to remove it, if I decide to at some point.  You can get the American toy carded on eBay for like $8, so I'm not sure it's worth selling the thing once I subtract the cost of the Goo-Be-Gone.  If it even works.  Meh!

Well that's the last of the Autobot Cars subgroup to be remade in Classics/Universe/Generations!  Skids finishes 'em all up.  It makes a perverse kind of sense that it works out this way.  Dude got two lines in two different episodes in the original cartoon, was heavily shortpacked back in the day, and made real appearances only in the old Marvel stuff.  He's the guy you're bound to forget.  

(Maybe that's the hidden joke regarding his characterization in the ongoing IDW comics.  Dude's got amnesia.  He's forgotten himself!)  

His original toy was a Honda City Turbo, which was this tiny thing, so his new toy is a similarly-eensy modern hatchback.  The Turbo wasn't sold in America, and was drawn in the comics and cartoons as a much larger mini-van.  Americans know what mini-vans are.  Compact cars, not so much.

Just like the Trailbreaker toy which preceded him, this Skids is based on Alex Milne's design from the More Than Meets The Eye ongoing comic book but with a more Earthy alternate mode rather than a Cybertronian-style one.  His head is the Milne-est thing ever sculpted, with the artist's signature pointy hook nose.  In robot mode, he doesn't look far from having leapt directly out of the comics.  He's just got a few Earth car parts here and there to spoil the illusion.

I like the idea of Transformers being designed after certain artist's styles.  Especially if we're going to get characters repeating.  It'd be nice to have, say, a "Geoff Senior" Nightbeat or a "Guido Guidi" Galvatron.  It interests me artistically.  Usually instead Hasbro tries to skew towards a more neutral presentation.  

(Skids also comes with an issue of MTMTE, as do the rest of the current line of Deluxes.  But that issue isn't drawn by Milne, so you don't really get the one-to-one comparison.)  

Skids also comes with the "nudge gun" that was a focus of his storyline in the MTMTE comic book series.  This smaller gun can plug into the back of his larger gun (based on the toy's original weapon) to make an even longer gun.

He transforms fairly similarly to the original toy.  He's got a hood chest and his legs fold out of the back of the car and the roof and wings fold onto his back and his arms sorta tuck away somewhere inside.  Also like the original Skids toy, he's covered in weapons.  There's two shoulder-mounted weapons, missile racks sculpted into his shoulders, and guns under his forearms.  Each set of forearm guns is geared into itself so that if you raise one side you raise the other.  

The only thing that bugs me about the toy is the lack of non-hand storage for the guns in robot mode.  I kinda wish I could plug them in somewhere on the robot mode to keep his hands free.  However, the only other 5mm pegholes are on the undersides of his feet in robot mode.  

(His hips are misassembled, so you'll have to swap them to get his legs to bend forward.  No tools needed, just chunk those pieces out of their tabs.)