Rapido
- Rapido is an Autobot from the Generation 2 portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Rapido outranks you. He outranks everybody. Even Optimus Prime, even though he humbly retains the job of "Platoon Commander" of the Axelerators.
Suave, unflappable and endlessly clever, Rapido uses his tactical genius to bring the Autobots ever closer to final victory over the Decepticons. His plans are amazingly complex, plotted down to the smallest detail. Even when things are rough, he keeps his cool and works out a plan to turn things around again.
Fiction
Dreamwave comics continuity
Rapido, standing beside Aero Raid and Windbreaker, was among a crowd of unhappy Autobots who made Prowl look really stupid when the latter tried to make a speech. Skyfire
Wings of Honor
During a battle outside of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, Rapido ordered a fall back after Pyro was captured. Minutes later, when Scorch and Streetwise tried to take over, Rapido balked at being treated like a child, despite only being a minor in Earth years. When Scorch objected to his formulating a rescue plan, Rapido reminded him that he technically outranked all Autobots on Earth in emergency situation, as authorized by Optimus Prime himself.
Eventually the Autobots went on the counterattack to stop the Decepticons from seizing the power of the Collider and to save Pyro. While most the Autobots kept the Decepticons busy, Rapido took Meanstreak and Streetwise to the back entrance. While his low-yield photo missiles were unable to crack the door, Streetwise's knock caused it to tumble. Once inside they met with a duo of Sharkticon guards and attempted to use the universal greeting to quell them. When this proved fruitless, Rapido transformed and crashed the guards through the door they were guarding, right into the room where Pyro was being held!
The rescue team began getting pummeled by the Forestonite-infused Decepticons. Rapido shot his missiles to free Pyro, evening the odds a little. When Breakdown saw this, he shot the rest of the Forestonite, resulting in its gaseous form filling the building and powering up all the Transformers within. Rapido found he now had the power of super speed, and used it to outrun Sky-byte's missiles, leading them into the main skirmish and having them hit Cindersaur instead. When the Decepticons retreated, Rapido attended to the humans and later enjoyed a drink of energon. Generation 2: Redux
Toys
Generation 1
- Rapido (Axelerator, 1993)
- Accessories: Engine-block rifle
- Rapido transforms into a somewhat abstracted Peugeot Quasar concept car. His chrome-silver, rear-mounted engine block becomes his robot-mode blaster weapon. Rapido's toy is primarily distinguished by his head being too recessed actually to see over his robot mode chest. It is also gang-molded with Turbofire.
- He was initially released in the European market in 1993, during the transitional time when the Transformers toys took on the new Generation 2 sigils, but the packaging lacked the "Generation 2" line-name.
Generation 2
- Rapido (Small Car/Axelerator, 1993/1994)
- Accessories: Engine-block rifle
- Released concurrently with the European "Generation 1" Rapido, the US version is almost identical to the European toy, save the pink clear-plastic being replaced with smoky-black. Rapido was re-released in the European Generation 2 line the following year, retaining his clear-pink plastics.
Block Town
- Gasoline Station Set (Block Town, 1996)
- Accessories: Engine-block rifle, gas pump brick set
- Rapido's mold was one of several intended to be used in the post-Generation 2 Takara Block Town line. To be redecoed in black with blue robot parts, he was to come with the "Gasoline Station Set", a building-block gas pump that could be rebuilt into a battle station of some form. This set ultimately never came to release. In 2005, a supposed Takara "release" schedule listed the Block Town sets among several other future items coming out. Only the Galaxy Force items on that list saw release, however (and some only as store exclusives to boot).
- Since very little information exists on the line's more fictional aspects (including the robot's name), it is unknown if this toy was to be the same general character Rapido, or a new character altogether.
 Proceed on your way to oblivion. |
Timelines
- Rapido and Cindersaur (Souvenir set, 2010)
- Accessories: "Axelerator cannon"
- Exclusive to BotCon 2010, Rapido is a new-head retool of the 2008 Universe series Silverstreak toy, transforming into a modified Nissan 350Z. He features twin non-removable and non-firing "rocket launchers" that can swing over his robot-mode shoulders. His fold-out rifle stores in the car mode's undersides. He was available only in an at-show souvenir set with Cindersaur, limited to 1500 pieces.
- This mold was also used to make Universe Prowl and Smokescreen, as well as fellow BotCon 2010 exclusive Timelines Streetstar.
Notes
- "Rapido" means "rapid" or "fast" in Spanish and Italian.
- Like all of the toys carried over from the European line for Generation 2, Rapido got entirely new artwork for his US release (shown at the top of this article). His original artwork was considerably less scary than that of his fellow Axelerators.
- Regarding him outranking "everybody"... that's a slight exaggeration, but not by much. In the 1993 US line, only Rapido and Grimlock had a "10" Rank in their Tech Specs; the Optimus Prime toy released that year had a mere "9". Speedstream also had a 10, but as he was never released in the US, few fans knew about it back then and thus the Aquaspeeder leader got to miss out on the joke.
- Though Rapido was never released in Japan, he did gain a Japanese name via a BotCon Japan 1997 exclusive poster, which featured bios for all of the new Generation 2 characters released in the US who weren't part of the Japanese line: the Axelerators, the Skyscorchers, Rotor Force, four of the Go-Bots and the Color Changers.
- For BotCon 2010, his character was based somewhat on "The Most Interesting Man in the World" from the Dos Equis beer commercials. His bio card from the convention was written entirely in Spanish, because this was an awesome thing to do. After the convention, Fun Publications put up an English version.
Foreign names
- Japanese: Rapid Engine (ラピッドエンジン Rapiddo Enjin)
- Italian: Sirius
