Rapido

Rapido is an Autobot from the Generation 1 continuity family.

He is the most interesting bot in the world.

Rapido (aka Racemaster) 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 and incredible land-speed 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 Generation One continuity

Even Decepticons list him as their emergency contact number.

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 Universe

He once held the Matrix, only to give it back.

Rapido Depressa was created in one of Earth's Cyberfactories as part of a new generation; specifically, he was "born" in Madrid, Spain in 1993. He spent some time in international racing before a new Decepticon threat called him to combat duty. BotCon Rapido's bio card

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!

He is the life of parties that he has never attended.

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

He, Pyro and Sizzle were briefed by Ultra Magnus on a break-in at Quantum Laboratories, and given the task of finding whoever was responsible. A Flash Forward, Part 2

During Jhiaxus’s invasion of Cybertron, Rapido stood by at the ready as part of a joint team of Autobots and Decepticons, awaiting Obsidian’s signal for their time to fight back. Once the signal came, they teleported to Cybertron and started beating on some drones. Eagle Eye soon spotted Jhiaxus on the battlefield, and so Rapido provided Serpentor, Krok and Nacelle some cover fire while they found a way to Jhiaxus’s coordinates. After the joint Autobot-Decepticon army had defeated Jhiaxus’s army, Rapido was present at the signing of the Pax Cybertronia. A Common Foe

Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity

He’s a racer, not a fighter, but he’s also a fighter, so don’t get any ideas.

United EX

A young Autobot created on Earth, "Racemaster" (レースマスター Rēsumasutā) was trained by a previous Autobot commander while stationed in Spain. He was assigned a set of specialized Drones as part of the Power Core Combiners program, and sent on a transport mission, where he began to chafe under having to maintain the highway speed limit. He began to wonder what had happened to the missing Choppermaster, and quickly realized that if the Decepticons had gotten their hands on his comrade's Drones, odds were he was the next target.

His flash of insight saved him from a hail of missiles launched by Combatmaster, who had set up the purloined Drones along the road in an ambush. Combatmaster demanded the surrender of the Autobot Drones, but a sudden burst of super-speed from both Racemaster and his convoy had them quickly and safely beyond the Decepticon's range. Weapons of a New Generation

After Marinemaster discovered the location of the Decepticons' hideout, Racemaster and the other Autobots launched an attack on the enemy base. Arriving at the cavern housing their enemies, Racemaster struck first against the base's guard, Combatmaster. The Decepticon dodged his attack and retaliated, leading into an intense battle as more combatants joined both sides of the conflict. Hope for the Next Generation Unearthed Future

Legends comic

Racemaster would eventually return to being Rapido. During the peace of the Cybertron Alliance, Rapido watched as Blaster was reunited with Flip Sides. Bonus Edition Metroplex

Regeneration One

His friends call him by his name. His enemies don't call him anything because they are all dead.

Twenty-odd years after the end of hostilities between the Autobots and the Decepticons, Rapido fell victim to Scorponok's Gene Key. Natural Selection, Part Three

Later, Rapido was part of a small unit Ultra Magnus put together to hunt down the wounded Galvatron. While they succeeded in finding the crazed time travelling Decepticon, he wasn't one to go down without a fight, taking out Skram with a single blast. Rapido expressed frustration about Skram's glory-hound tendencies, but the group was suddenly attacked by the Acolytes of Unicron. Rapido opened fire on them with his pistol, but in the confusion Galvatron was evacuated by the Acolytes. The War to End All Wars, Part 1

2005 IDW continuity

He once flirted with danger, and danger got clingy.

Racemaster was a Velocitronian racer who participated in the Benefit 500 alongside Blurr (who found his name uninspired). He introduced Blurr to the ruthlessness of Velocitronian racing by using hidden blades on his car mode to cut the "newbie", but nevertheless lost when ramps suddenly started springing up in the racing circuit, blocking all racers but Blurr who used them to jump to the goal. Race Against the Light

Toys

The Transformers

He once punched a Quintesson wizard. You heard me.

• Rapido (Axelerator, 1993)

• Accessories: Engine-block rifle
• Known designers: Takio Ejima (TakaraTomy), Masakatsu Saito (concept artist)

The Transformers 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 to actually 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. This release featured pink windows and an orange windshield decal, as seen at right, as opposed to the later US version's tinted windows and yellow windshield decal.

• More information at Rapido at TFU.info

Generation 2

• Rapido (Autobot Car, 1993) / Rapido (Axelerator, 1994)

• Accessories: Engine-block rifle

Released concurrently with the European "Generation 1" Rapido, the U.S. Generation 2 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.

This mold was planned by Takara for use as Rapid Engine in the Block Town line, but that release was scrapped.

Timelines

He can speak Spanish... in Mini-Con binary.

• 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. The original version of this mold also served as the basis of the non-toy Shattered Glass incarnation of Prowl.

• More information on Rapido at TFU.info

United EX

His batch proto-initiator has a tattoo that says "SON."

• Racemaster Prime Mode (2012-10-20)

• ID number: EX 05
• Accessories: Agile Drone, Depressa Drone, Rapide Drone, Schnell Drone

Racemaster is a redeco of the Power Core Combiners Double Clutch toy, transforming into a muscle car of undetermined model. He also has a "Prime Mode" where he becomes the torso of a super robot, capable of using any auto-transforming Power Core Combiner drone-machine molds for limbs.

He comes with four color-coordinated automobile drone-limbs, redecoes of the Rallybots. Each one has a square socket for a Power Core Combiner connection; when attached via the blue plugs on a Commander figure, the vehicles automatically transform into a super-robot limb, and snaps back to vehicle mode when disconnected. Each drone also has a fold-out Mini-Con Powerlinx plug. Despite the universal connector, each drone can only form one limb type (but can be swapped from left to right):

• Schnell Drone [Drag Racer]—Leg (Racemaster's right)
• Rapide Drone [Race Car]—Arm (Racemaster's right)
• Depressa Drone [Street Racer]—Leg (Racemaster's left)
• Agile Drone [Tuner]—Arm (Racemaster's left)

The drones are named after Rapido's name if translated in German, French, Portuguese & English.

The Rapide Drone and Agile Drone molds were also used to make two Stunticons.

Notes

I don't always download beer. But when I do, I prefer DOS EXEs.

• "Rapido" means "rapid" or "fast" in Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.
• Like all of the toys carried over from the European line for Generation 2, Rapido got entirely new artwork for his U.S. release (shown at the top of this article). His original artwork was considerably less scary than that of his fellow Axelerators.
• Unlike most of the toys carried over from the European line for Generation 2, the United States releases of the "Small Cars" kept the mottos and bios of the 1993 European Axelerators mostly unchanged, though the European 1994 Generation 2 releases omitted the bios and only featured the mottos in multiple languages. Rapido even got to keep his name for the American release!
• Regarding him outranking "everybody"... that's a slight exaggeration, but not by much. In the 1993 U.S. 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 U.S., 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 U.S. 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. His dialogue throughout "Generation 2: Redux" and "A Common Foe" is peppered with European Spanish words and phrases, a trait carried over into his United EX incarnation.
• The names of the Drones for his United EX incarnation are all European-language words meaning "fast".

Foreign names

• Japanese: Rapid Engine (ラピッドエンジン Rapiddo Enjin)
• Italian: Sirius