Swerve (Chevy)

The name or term "Swerve" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Swerve (disambiguation).

Swerve is an Autobot from the Universe conflict.

File:Swerveaveorobot.jpg

International Bot of Mystery

"A mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma, blindfolded and dunked in delicious milk chocolate" would be a charitable way to describe Swerve. He is the result of the most unusual toy release in the history of the brand.

Toys

Universe

• Swerve (Deluxe, 2008)

Swerve transforms into a licensed Chevy Aveo LT. Despite this altmode and the timing of his release, he has no relationship to Aveo, Sphinx, or the rest of the Chevy Autobots. He also has no gimmicks whatsoever, not even a non-firing weapon.

File:ChevySwerve car.jpg

Mystery Machine

On March 25th 2008, the Chevrolet online store began to offer Swerve as a "special featured item"... but only from its branches in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. Swerve officially sold for €12.80, which, depending on the order location and currency conversion rates, translated into to approximately $20~$30 before shipping. However, orders from customers in the United States were subject to a "processing" fee of over $50 and a "trans-Atlantic shipping fee" of almost $100(!). Less than two days later, the order page was taken down without explanation. By the end of the month, purchasers reported that their Swerves were indeed arriving.

Over a year later, Chevrolet/GM made Swerve available again through a contest promotion at several mall displays in Ontario, Canada, running from June 18th to August 2nd, 2009. As before, numbers were extremely limited, but this time they were given out for free.

After about another year, the toy surfaced officially for a third time, when Hasbro supplied some to the popular online dealer BigBadToyStore. In this case, the Swerves are expected in-stock by May 2010, to retail for about $75.

His next venue? We're betting the Moon.

Creation and release

Swerve had an... interesting past. Samples of the toy originally surfaced on Asian websites in August 2007, packaged in polybags that had English text printed on them, and came with standard English-language Hasbro instruction manuals, featuring the logo of the original 2003 Universe line. All "final" samples were the same red color; one specimen appeared to be yellow, but in fact had been hand-painted. The instructions lacked an assortment number, leading to the conclusion that it was a standalone release, presumably an exclusive, though the venue was unknown; for that matter, whether it would even be released at all seemed uncertain for a long time.

When the first samples turned up in China, some of the dealers claimed the toy was supposed to be available as a freebie for buying a real-life Chevy Aveo, which would have made it far and away the single most expensive official Transformers toy. However, contradictory rumors claimed the toy would be available as a freebie for test-driving a Chevy Aveo, or that it was a promotional Chevy exclusive to be only available in China. None of those reports were ever verified, and to this day it is unclear whether the toy was ever officially available in China at all or whether all the samples from Asia were of the usual stolen "leaked" variety.

Early reports throughout the fandom, tepidly verified by Hasbro sources, suggested that the mold's creation had been commissioned by Chevrolet for that company's exclusive use; neither Hasbro or TakaraTomy can use it in their own lines. This amounts to the first time that a "mainstream" Transformer mold was created to be an exclusive (as opposed to things like Happy Meal toys, which are obviously distinct from standard product and cost far less to design and produce).

Those rumors were confirmed at BotCon 2008. Hasbro revealed that it had produced the toy at cost for Chevy as thanks for their successful partnership. It was designed for a promotional campaign in European markets, with the toys given away to people who took a test-drive of a real Chevy Aveo. (It's also still unclear if, when and where this purported promotional campaign actually happened.) The toys were never meant to be sold; a handful were left after the promotion had ended (assuming it actually happened), and so they were shunted onto the website where these last few remainders very quickly sold out (so quickly that some fans who had placed acknowledged orders never got them).

For the 2009 Canadian promotion, the Swerves were one of several incentive prizes used to entice customers to fill in an entry form for an even bigger contest--the ultimate prize in that case being a real 2010 Chevy Camaro. Contest managers reported that they had fewer than 20 Swerves to distribute each day, with a limit of 1 per customer.

To date, Swerve's only confirmed releases have been through GM itself. For Hasbro to issue the toy on their own, they would have to negotiate for the rights, and they have no plans to do so.

We knew Chevy/General Motors had gotten close with Hasbro, but, damn.

Trivia

• Oddly, Chevrolet themselves seem to think that the idea of a transforming Aveo isn't exactly the best marketing strategy.[1]. (Alternatively, they might just be disappointed that Citroën beat them to the idea by a few years, before Chevy even got involved in the Transformers movie.)
• This Swerve is the only toy called such that has a mold unique to it. The others are redecos/retools.

External links

• Chevrolet website that was selling Swerve for about 36 hours in 2008

• Messageboard announcement of the 2009 Canadian release

• BigBadToyStore's listing page for 2010