In what may be one of the biggest acts of nerdiness ever, a man in California has actually constructed a life-sized statue of the Transformer Bumblebee in his front yard. To make it even cooler, he based the design on the 80's cartoon and not the movie. In a final act of awesomeness, he used an actual VW Beetle to build the thing.

The funny thing is that the builder showed more respect to the original cartoon in this single act than Michael Bay did with the whole franchise (although I give Bay props for using some of the original cartoon voices in the movies).

Granted, car styles have changed a lot since the 1980's, but the VW Beetle is back in style and changing Bumblebee to Chevy Camaro seems sacrilege. My guess is that Michael Bay simply wanted to buy American.

So which Transformer do you think he should build next?

[via Topless Robot]

Our buddies over at Autoblog can hardly contain themselves over these photos of the new Transformers action figures (they're crazy for cars, and cars that turn into robots are their ultimate dream). The newly-styled gizmos will be released this summer, in conjunction with the live-action Transformers film which comes out on July 4th. The figures are designed based on the style of the movie, of which we've seen only a few clips.

The new Transformers look tougher than the plastic ones I remember as a kid (I had three brothers, so Barbie was out). Specifically, their faces are a little more mencing. Even Optimus Prime has been updated with a new paint job. And check out the Optimus Prime Arm Blaster. It would be okay for a grown woman to have a Transformer on her desk, right?