Captain Fanzone's car

This article is about the normal car belonging to Captain Fanzone. For the Autobot who looks just like it, but cleaner, see Bumblebee (Animated).

Captain Fanzone's car is a hapless vehicle in the Transformers Animated continuity.

"This is why I hate apricot Jell-O!"

Captain Fanzone's car is a rusty yellow sports car of undetermined model. It gets destroyed a lot, but always seems to be back in time for its next mauling. It was also the basis for Bumblebee's Earth vehicle altmode.

"How come your interior's so much cleaner than mine?"

―{{{2}}}

"Maybe because it's not on fire?"

―Captain Fanzone and Sari

Fiction

Captain Fanzone was seated in his car, about to eat a burger, when he received a radio call summoning all units to a Sumdac Systems building. (A humongous nanobug was absorbing everything in its path.) His car was thus present among the collected emergency vehicles when Teletran 1 scanned them for new altmodes for Optimus Prime and his crew of Autobots. Scrappy speedster Bumblebee adopted the look of the yellow hatchback, sans rust. When the Autobots made their debut to confront the nanobug, Fanzone briefly mistook 'Bee for his car, exclaiming, "How is my car driving itself?!" Transform and Roll Out!

"This is why I hate bumper cars!"

Fanzone's car was present for many of his encounters with Autobots and Decepticons, often in the role of "collateral damage". For example, in the Dinobots' debut appearance, Snarl knocked a car into the air with his tail, causing it to bounce amusingly off of Fanzone's vehicle. Blast from the Past Afterwards, he briefly used a normal police cruiser. Lost and Found

The resemblance between Fanzone's car and Bumblebee was occasionally useful, as when Fanzone drove Bumblebee to a ransom meeting with the Headmaster, thus sneaking the Autobot into the building under the guise of a normal car. Headmaster

"And this is why I hate bananas in the tailpipe!"

The car's most energetic death yet came when Fanzone was investigating Master Disaster's underground races. He and Bumblebee ended up pursued by the crazy Decepticon Blitzwing. Bumblebee and Sari Sumdac urged Fanzone to jump into 'Bee, and moments later Blitzwing destroyed Fanzone's car with a missile. Velocity

Toys

• Most of Bumblebee's toys will serve, so long as you don't transform them. You might want to paint on some rust, and scatter a few burger wrappers around the interior.
• (One hopes the redeco opportunity here is as obvious to HasTak as it is to us.)

Trivia

• No explanation has been explicitly offered for how his car keeps coming back from being totaled. Either he's repeatedly buying identical cars, or he's getting them fixed at great expense (but not getting the rust fixed).
• On the other hand, dialogue in "Velocity" implies that the car is the property of the Detroit Police Department. Given how large bureaucracies work, it's possible they bought a fleet of identical unmarked cars several years ago, and they're all rusting at about the same rate.
• Or, it's just a running gag.