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Fast, stylish, sleek, snobbish, maybe a little arrogant? Yep, that’s Mirage. Back on Cybertron, Mirage is an upper class citizen, while stuck on earth he makes that clear by becoming an upper class car. Well, at least he becomes a car that out classes most in performance. I suppose Formula racing is also a bit more snobbish than its hillbilly cousin NASCAR, what with all its “drivers with accents”.

Still, we wouldn’t have it any other way. Ok, technically there was that space boat Decepticon named Mirage back in Energon and of course the GT-40 Alternators version, but all of the other previous versions of Mirage have been formula racing vehicle of some sort. Even the evil Vehicon one turned into a Cybertronian race car. And why shouldn’t he? Mirage is supposed to be on top, why shouldn’t he become a speedy and maneuverable race car? Sure he’s not built for war but he doesn’t like fighting anyway.

I do have some issues with his vehicle mode though. Maybe I haven’t looked at formula cars in a while but the rear end is supposed to be considerably less squared off and brick-ish. There’s just something about it I don’t like, I think maybe if the sides flared out a bit more around the rear wheels it would help. He also has a lot of upswing leading to his spoiler. A lot of this however I’m sure is to accommodate the aesthetics of the robot mode.

Still, as a transformer he is unmistakably Mirage. He lacks the original toys “Citanes” markings but gains the fan service filled “Witwicky Sparkplugs”. For those who don’t know in the original show there the humans helping the Autobots were the Witwickys. One of them went by the name of “Sparkplug”. He also has logos for “F.P. Racing”, which is meaningless to me. He does retain his blue and white colors as well as his number 26.

The transformation is rather interesting and can be confusing without the instructions. I managed to snap a piece into the wrong position while transforming it for the first time, as a result I had to cut a tab off to get things to return to normal. The legs do this nifty double fold thing that give the robot mode exceptional joints.

Which is the final result. A very poseable robot mode. Mirage has double jointed knees and elbows and his frame makes him the most poseable transformer I have ever seen. Like I said, his frame really helps. He’s also one of the skinniest transformers for his size. There’s almost zero “kibble” on him other than his wheeled backpack, but it sticks up over his head out of the way. This all very much fits with his upper class back story. Basically, as a wealthy snob, he likely spends a lot of time doing personal training. He’s essentially in “great shape”, in as much that a Transformer can be. He’s not a bulked out soldier like say, Optimus Prime or a slightly chubby underdog like Bumblebee, he’s a fit elite snob.

It’s really something that needs to be seen to get the gist of, so I’ve made sure to include extra photos of the robot. A minor gripe is that the original Mirage was actually pretty bulky.

His robot mode is all around reasonably solid except the chest doesn’t actually peg into place and several times the waist joint on mine has slipped out. Everything else holds together very nicely. Mirage also includes a slightly lame gun formed from the front spoiler of his car. It really looks more like a crossbow of some sort with its huge wings. Still it looks like he’s holding the front of a formula race car on a stick so it looses points.

Despite these minor flaws, Mirage is easily the best of the Classics released so far. The slightly out of proportion vehicle mode is completely forgiven in favor of an absolutely awesome robot mode.