Death's Head
03-09-11, 08:21 PM
Aloof. Refined. Debonair. So why does lord of the manor Mirage transform into a Formula 1 racing car? This is one of the great mysteries of my youth that I’m still grappling with. Surely, he’d be more at home transforming into a Rolls Royce like the dude with the top hat off of Gobots. Maybe it’s something to do with his competitive nature, hunting Turbofoxes (Hrm. Do they have hunting dogs and steeds on Cybertron..?).
Either way, it all turned to sh*t on Cybertron for Mirage and his upper class yahoos and he threw in his lot with the Autobots, although he’s not entirely sure why. His ambivalence towards the Autobot cause is what makes Mirage one of the more interesting characters in the pantheon of Transformers characters, although we’ve never really had this fleshed out in any meaningful way. Normally, it just means Mirage gets painted as a traitor which is very lazy way of looking at things.
As for his toy, it’s a little belter. Watching Formula 1 properly, for the first time, with Metalhawk telling me all about fancy rear spoilers and zones and stuff, it’s amazing how dated this design now looks. Mirage’s vehicle mode harks back to a time in motor racing before great chunks of bodywork were disposed of to make racing cars more streamlined and aerodynamic and thus faster. It’s still quite a charming thing, but even by the mid 1980s, F1 design had moved on from this 1970s museum piece. Apparently, the design is rather fancy for the time, and it was a winning car in a year for a French team. I just think it’s a cute, boxy looking thing with an inappropriate cigarette advert splashed all over it (although misspelt from the real world Gitanes brand). I say inappropriate, it’s realistic as it was only into the 1990s that tobacco advertising in Formula 1 was banned, but someone thought it was a smidge inappropriate. Corgi apparently didn’t feel the same and were quite happy to churn out toy cars plastered with the John Player Special logo, but that’s obviously completely different and okay.
Transforming Mirage is ace. He’s got one of the best sequences out of the early Autobot cars, on a par with the Datsun Fairlady Z (sounds like a villain from some hoary old Anime that) mould (Prowl , Smokescreen and Bluestreak). The back half of the car splits down the middle and rotates around to form the legs, whilst the arms pull out of the sides and the front spoiler flips down to reveal the head. The front wheels tilt to the back where you can clamp that fearsome rocket launcher. The robot mode is a nice mix of silver, blue and white. It looks fantastic. He doesn’t have much in the way of movement, simply being able to move his arms about and twist at the waist, but damn, if it doesn’t look good.
Easily one of the highlights of the 1984 range, Mirage is well worth hunting down. Lacking an official reissue, he can be a costly exercise to purchase now in good condition, with many second hand versions being bereft of the rear spoilers o somehow snapped in two. There is a cheeky Chinese bootleg that’s indistinguishable from the real thing, which to be honest will cost you the same as a good condition original, not that I am condoning such things, but it’s amazing that Chinese bootleggers can be arsed reverse engineering Mirage off an original toy and this is beyond the means of the legitimate owners. Economies of scale, I suppose, but when fans are lapping up rubbish like the badly degraded Encore Bruticus (fingers crossed the upcoming Devastator reissue doesn't turn out to be a similar disappointment) , it’s not suprising HasTakTom care little for putting any effort into their reissue line.
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Either way, it all turned to sh*t on Cybertron for Mirage and his upper class yahoos and he threw in his lot with the Autobots, although he’s not entirely sure why. His ambivalence towards the Autobot cause is what makes Mirage one of the more interesting characters in the pantheon of Transformers characters, although we’ve never really had this fleshed out in any meaningful way. Normally, it just means Mirage gets painted as a traitor which is very lazy way of looking at things.
As for his toy, it’s a little belter. Watching Formula 1 properly, for the first time, with Metalhawk telling me all about fancy rear spoilers and zones and stuff, it’s amazing how dated this design now looks. Mirage’s vehicle mode harks back to a time in motor racing before great chunks of bodywork were disposed of to make racing cars more streamlined and aerodynamic and thus faster. It’s still quite a charming thing, but even by the mid 1980s, F1 design had moved on from this 1970s museum piece. Apparently, the design is rather fancy for the time, and it was a winning car in a year for a French team. I just think it’s a cute, boxy looking thing with an inappropriate cigarette advert splashed all over it (although misspelt from the real world Gitanes brand). I say inappropriate, it’s realistic as it was only into the 1990s that tobacco advertising in Formula 1 was banned, but someone thought it was a smidge inappropriate. Corgi apparently didn’t feel the same and were quite happy to churn out toy cars plastered with the John Player Special logo, but that’s obviously completely different and okay.
Transforming Mirage is ace. He’s got one of the best sequences out of the early Autobot cars, on a par with the Datsun Fairlady Z (sounds like a villain from some hoary old Anime that) mould (Prowl , Smokescreen and Bluestreak). The back half of the car splits down the middle and rotates around to form the legs, whilst the arms pull out of the sides and the front spoiler flips down to reveal the head. The front wheels tilt to the back where you can clamp that fearsome rocket launcher. The robot mode is a nice mix of silver, blue and white. It looks fantastic. He doesn’t have much in the way of movement, simply being able to move his arms about and twist at the waist, but damn, if it doesn’t look good.
Easily one of the highlights of the 1984 range, Mirage is well worth hunting down. Lacking an official reissue, he can be a costly exercise to purchase now in good condition, with many second hand versions being bereft of the rear spoilers o somehow snapped in two. There is a cheeky Chinese bootleg that’s indistinguishable from the real thing, which to be honest will cost you the same as a good condition original, not that I am condoning such things, but it’s amazing that Chinese bootleggers can be arsed reverse engineering Mirage off an original toy and this is beyond the means of the legitimate owners. Economies of scale, I suppose, but when fans are lapping up rubbish like the badly degraded Encore Bruticus (fingers crossed the upcoming Devastator reissue doesn't turn out to be a similar disappointment) , it’s not suprising HasTakTom care little for putting any effort into their reissue line.
581582