A redeco of Earthrise Hoist - which I shot and have yet to post the review - this Lift-Ticket is familiar to long-time fans. A red truck was sold in the Diaclone line in the 1980s, and a red redeco of Hoist called Lift-Ticket was a BotCon exclusive a few years ago. The character has very little place in the fiction - none outside BotCon fiction - but is notable of being one of the first Takara toys to have "WRECKER" written on his person. (He is not a part of the Wreckers, though.)
If you missed the BotCon one (which is worth about $65 on eBay as of my writing this), this is a good substitute - but that's assuming you have a reason to need a red Hoist at all, which you probably don't.
Lift-Ticket is a slightly improved color swap of Hoist. Green is red, orange is yellow, white is light gray. The figure has the same yellow and black tampos, except with the added "WRECKER" on the doors. He still has a chest symbol revealing his not secret allegiance to the Autobots, but the chest has one big change - they dropped the ugly silver battle-damage deco. It made sense in Siege, a war-torn Cybertron story, but for Earthrise the newly reformatted bodies should look a little bit cleaner. (Also dropping it saves Hasbro a few cents, but mostly it looks nicer.) The colors are bright and cheery, matching the likes of Hot Rod and Rodimus Prime if you don't have enough of that color in your life.
His hand-held blaster weapon looks like a hand, and it's painted silver but molded in yellow. You can mount a C.O.M.B.A.T. effect in the barrel if you like. You can rotate the wings on his back, and the light array can move too. Articulation on the robot is pretty good, with about 24 meaningful joints including double-knees and kind of weird lateral arm movement. There's a lot to like here, but the wing kibble - true to the 1980s toy - is something I'm just not fond of at all. But you can't fault them for not trying to be authentic. The head sculpt matches Hoist, which largely borrows from the animation model. It's pretty good.
Transformation is much like Hoist and Trailbreaker, and I suggest consulting the instructions. A lot of parts snap into place with "am I going to break this?" level force, with tabs and slots having tolerances that are incredibly tight. It's sturdy in both modes, but you want to be sure you're doing it right. The truck drags the robot knuckles along the ground, which isn't really a good look and it's not terribly good for the "driving around" function either. But it's a nice truck - it looks exactly as it should for a Hoist repaint, I love the "WRECKER" markings, and the colors are nice. You can mount his blaster on the side, and there's a ramp you can pull down to connect to bases. Why would you want to do this? I have no idea. I don't want to do this, but it's there.
This is the first Legacy-branded toy, in a fancier Selects box with the new logo on the box and manual. Surprise! (Retail toys are expected in spring.) This is not an essential toy unless you're a Diaclone fanatic or a completist... or you just like the current toy aesthetic. They're really neat, so I won't knock you for wanting to get one of these. I don't regret buying it, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the shine fade with time as new molds or weirder repaints come to pass.
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