Care must be taken when handling these three effects parts as they are made from thin, hard plastic that can break if bent, as opposed to the more durable mushy goodness of the other effects parts. In this case, it is the shot of Hot Rod about to open the Matrix as he stands within Unicron's innards. The exhaust effects are molded in translucent blue, and appear as such in promotional images, but the final pieces are painted black. Hot Rod was re-released with his new Nebulan Targetmaster partner Firebolt a year after the original release.

In addition to regular weapons, Hot Rod possesses a special weapon that can create temporary temporal bubbles in which time slows to a crawl. In Cybertron, Takara made a redeco of Hot Shot (well, "Exillion"), who already had some Hot Rod homage elements in his toy design, with Hot Rod deco as a DVD-pack-in exclusive. In 2021, Hot Rod's packaging was altered significantly in accordance with Hasbro's new plastic-free packaging approach.

Targetmaster Hot Rod's packaging originally contained the erroneous blurb "Firebolt transforms into Misfire's weapon!

While claimed to not be "canceled", Walmart quickly moved on from the Velocitron Collection, and Hasbro has no plans to release Autobot Hot Rod. By the far-off year of 2006, the Cybertronians will have perfected the art of converting living metal to cardboard. At some point after arriving on the planet, he somehow picked up a French accent that he did not know how to get rid of, something that caused him much frustration.As with other Studio Series figures, the interior of the packaging can form a diorama display for the figure. Unlike most of the figures from Hasbro's 2016 Platinum Edition offerings commemorating the 30th Anniversary of The Transformers: The Movie, this Rodimus Prime is not a redeco of what fans would consider a " CHUG" figure, but of his Titanium Series toy, nine years after its initial release, retaining the original figure's die-cast construction. One of the first concepts for Classics Rodimus was based around the Pagani Zonda super car, before the Dome Zero design was decided upon. While this might be a voyager class figure in the traditional sense, you can definitely see where that extra budget went. His accessories have also changed in plastic color, with his welding tool now being maroon instead of gray, his buzz saw being smoky transparent blue instead of smoky colorless transparent plastic, and the Photon Lasers being cast in a different color.