It is 1987, and a battered yellow Autobot, wounded and without memory, finds refuge in the junkyard of a small California coastal town. There he is discovered by Charlie, a girl of nearly eighteen who is grieving her father and cannot find her place in the world. When she repairs him and discovers that he is not a mere Volkswagen Beetle but an alien warrior, an endearing friendship is born between them, just as two Decepticons and a military agency pick up his trail. A prequel to the Transformers saga on a more intimate and emotional scale, with the 1980s charm of a friendship story between a teenager and her car.