Dave's Alternators Rant 22. Mirage Got this as part of the Camshaft assortment. A drought of months followed by a flood, whee! http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Alt/Mirage will have the most up-to- date version of this review, please check it before posting or emailing corrections, in case it's already been fixed. CAPSULE Mirage: Really nice, solid vehicle mode. Good transformation for the most part, and not horribly frustrating. Somewhat loose and kibbly robot mode. Recommended. $19.99 at Target. RANT Packaging: Standard fishbowl. In addition to the Ford oval placed in various parts of the package, there's also a separate "Ford Official Licensed Product" logo in several spots. While this turns out not to be new, I just noticed that the registered trademark R-in-circle things are followed by asterisks. And Hasbro has Mirage as a registered trademark now, so they no longer need to worry about losing it. On the bottom are the usual tweaked images of both modes and insets of features. In this case, the features are "Detailed interior!" and "Opening hatchback!" Motto: You can't catch what you can't see. Note that the model is just "Ford GT", as opposed to things like "Ford Mustang GT". GT stands for Grand Touring in most cases, and tends to get tacked onto all sorts of cars as a way of distinguishing them from the bare bones version of a model. But the Ford GT itself is its own model, and an expensive model at that. When I was shopping for my current car at the local Ford/Mazda dealership, I asked about the GT. The sticker price may be "only" about $130,000, but the actual price you pay to take it home with you comes closer to a quarter of a million. Insurance, should you even bother, would be at least $3000/month, and that's assuming all sorts of modifiers like not being your main car, having a really good job (kinda a given if you can afford a GT, mind you), etc. The dealership's owner once joked that if you paid $1000 he would let you test drive the GT he had on the lot for a couple minutes. (People who buy quarter-mil cars do not test drive, they generally show up with cash in hand and say "gimme that one, in red".) Anyway, very appropriate vehicle mode for Mirage. If it's not going to be a formula racer, at least it's the most expensive altmode to date by a wiiiide margin. VEHICLE MODE 7.5" (19cm) long, 3" (8cm) wide, and a low and lean 47mm (a little under 2") tall at the highest. The body shell is a mix of dark metal-flake blue (003366) plastic and clear colorless plastic with a pretty well-matched dark metal-flake blue paint. Under UV, the blue plastic takes on a greenish cast, while the painted clear plastic does not. The rims are chromed silver plastic, the tires are black rubberized Cybertronian Radials plastic. The system that makes both front wheels turn at once works fine, and the wheels can turn about 15 degrees either way (presumably the real GT is a touch more maneuverable). Paired white stripes (each 7mm wide with a 1mm gap between them) run along the centerline from front to back. Smaller paired white stripes (2mm wide with about a half millimeter gap) run along the sides near the bottom, from behind the front wheel to in front of the rear wheel. The side stripes have a larger gap near the front of the door, and in the gap is "FORD GT". The headlights and fog lights are dull silver painted pieces behind clear plastic, with the turn signals further painted orange. The front grille is painted black. At the front of the hood is a raised oval with the light blue and white Ford logo. A keystone-shaped depression near the rear of the hood has a silver Autobot logo printed in it, atop the white stripes. The gas cap is molded into the passenger side rear of the hood and painted dull silver. The windshield wipers molded into the windshield are painted black. The rear view mirrors have chrome mirror sides, and there's a silver-painted hinge sort of thing at the front of each door. The engine is visible through the hatchback window (yes, this is one of those rear engine sports cars, so that the front end can be really slender and low). There's a red bit painted at the top of the rear window for the "third taillight" part. There's black-painted vents flanking the central stripes on the hatchback. I think the rear turn signals are little blocks of cloudy clear red plastic, but the tail lights are definitely just painted on with slightly metallic dark red. [Correction: they're thin layers of cloudy clear red plastic. Had to look at them edge on to tell the difference.] There's what I think is black plastic on the rear and making up the exhaust pipes (which are centrally placed, not off to one side or on the underside). The license plate reads "MIR AGE" on the two halves, with no Autobot symbol. It is, in fact, a Michigan plate, with white letters on dark blue background, "MICH IGAN" and "GREAT LAKES" on the two halves, top and bottom respectively. Michigan's not a great place to own a GT if you want to drive it more than a few months out of the year, but it is where Ford corporate is located. :) There's a couple of bits below the rear bumper that are intended to slide down to make room for the thighs in robot mode, but they don't really hold in place in vehicle mode, hanging down loosely. They don't hang down far enough to drag, fortunately, but it might be a good idea to stiffen them up with some nail polish. The doors open fairly easily, and include a trapezoidal chunk of the roof, since the car is so low you'd have trouble getting in if only the side swung open. The interior panels of the doors are clear plastic, painted black on the face. The doors open about 80 degrees. The hood opens as well, although you may need strong fingernails or a knife the first time. It opens about 55 degrees up (pull up from where it meets the windshield). There's a tiny storage compartment molded under it, in black plastic. Like, you could maybe store a sandwich in it. You don't haul cargo in a GT. The hatchback doesn't open the way you think it would. You have to pull up the front end first, then lift the back end, due to the way the jointing works. It'll open pretty far, but the illusion starts to break down after about 40 degrees. Inside are various engine parts, mostly in black plastic but with a white plastic engine gun piece in the center, with silver paint on it. The joint and some interior bits are made of bright blue (close to 00CCFF) plastic. Both the white and bright blue plastics glow strongly under UV. [Clarification: the hatchback is supposed to open the way you think it would, lifting up from the rear and hinged over the engine. It just doesn't really do that on the toy, likely because they couldn't make such a joint work properly with the transformation.] The interior is black plastic, with silver paint on the center island and several of the gauges. The steering wheel is rigid plastic, but the stick shift and emergency brake are rubbery. The seats fold down, but the driver's seat is blocked by the steering wheel unless you fold the steering wheel out of the way first. There are some bright blue plastic hinges visible inside the doors. TRANSFORMATION I was able to figure out most of it without the instructions, via the "if it can move, it probably should" method. The chest, however, sent me looking, because there's a whole lot of ways it can go together, but none that really lock. The official version didn't really satisfy me, though, so I fiddled around until I found something I could live with. http://www.dvandom.com/images/mirageguts.JPG shows what I came up with. There are more stable solutions out there that require a little kitbashing, but I'm satisfied with this trick. [Later note: there's pectoral tabs as well, which theoretically get into position to lock the chest, but on mine they simply wouldn't stay at the right angle, and kept snapping away. Still looks better with them folded out, though. Be careful, though...in pulling the first one out, I snapped the joint of one of the abdominal flaps, and now my Mirage is broken.] The shoulders pull apart in the Laser Optimus Prime sort of way, interestingly, although it's not immediately obvious that those joints exist (a common problem with Alternators, really...are you breaking it or transforming it?). The car doors stay attached to the shoulder kibble, but at least there's an odd little joint that lets them fold down to be more like cloak parts, which is a nice change from the usual wings. The legs are fairly complex without being frustrating, and can be figured out from just a picture of the robot mode. The kneecaps are kinda arbitrary, though, and they rest on rather long hinged snakey segments. The heel spurs don't have any convenient bit to grab for pulling out, and they're simple hinges so the trick used on Prime won't work either. I don't have long enough nails to get purchase, but the joint isn't too stiff so fingernails should be fine for getting 'em open. I had to use a knife, though. When going back to vehicle mode, it's a bit tricky getting the tabs back in place so that the front wheels are linked. Mirage's engine top splits into two pistols, one long and one short. Not very impressive, but at least there's minimal "hey, there's an engine block hanging off your gun" effect. And the bigger one can be bent for shooting around corners. :) ROBOT MODE Just over 7" (18cm) tall. The front fenders and wheels sit on the shoulders (headlights pointed forwards), with the doors hanging down behind them...yet it looks pretty good, unlike similar kibble on Optimus Prime. In fact, it gives the impression of a regal cloak, fitting for an aristocratic sort like Mirage. The hood forms the chest, so he has a silver Autobot symbol in the middle of his chest, a nice touch. The head bears only the vaguest of resemblances to G1 Mirage's head, toy or cartoon, but that's no great loss in the case of the toy head. There's almost more resemblance to Energon Hot Shot than to G1 Mirage. :) And no, before anyone jumps on me over it, I'm not seriously suggesting it was intended to be a Hot Shot head. The head is very dark blue plastic, but not metalflake swirly, and not UV-reactive, so it's not the same as the auto body. It's possible other parts are made of this plastic, it's hard to tell it apart from black, even under good light. The fronts of the feet and much of the "connective tissue" inside the toy are black plastic. The upper arms, forearms, gun barrels, thighs and the non-car-part sections of the calves are white plastic. The elbow joints, hands, pistol grips, ankles, heel spurs and some connector pieces for vehicle kibble are bright blue. The arms do stand out as not looking quite like they belong with the rest of the robot mode, painting the forearms dark blue might have looked better. The face is painted silver with gold eyes, and there's more silver on the vents and horns of the helmet. There's bright blue paint on the forehead, most of the front of the pelvis, and in stripes down the middle of the toes. There is otherwise no paint on the robot-exclusive parts, but the car decor is used very effectively. The double white stripe on the hood now runs up the middle of the chest, and there's thinner double stripes on the shins. The head is on a somewhat restricted ball joint, and the waist swivels. The shoulders are swivels, but a transformation joint at their base makes them effectively universal joints. There's an upper arm swivel on each arm, and double hinge elbows. The wrists are somewhat restricted ball joints, and the fingers are the usual "index finger and chunk of the rest" hinges. Unlike most Alternators, the stabilizer pgs for the pistols fit into the heel of the hand, not the palm. Universal hips with swivels just above the knees are fairly stiff, but the knees themselves are kinda loose. I suspect this is one of those things that's gonna vary from toy to toy, though, so others may get stiff knees and loose hips. The knees bend 90 degrees. The ankles are a combination of ball joint and swivel, and the heel spurs are hinged reasonably stiffly. The feet are over 2" (about 5.5cm) long, for good stability. An interesting note for those wishing to create custom weapons, the linkage for the front wheels is on the collarbone area, with the u-shaped connectors sticking up over the shoulders. They're not exactly snap-on clips, as they spread apart slightly rather than curving together. The gap is 2mm wide, a little too narrow for plugging the pistols into place. But it would be fairly easy to make custom weapons that would fit snugly over the linkages, treating them as rectangular 4mm wide and 2.5mm deep pegs. They'd even track back and forth together on the interior slider bar. :) In fact, a 1-wide full height Lego brick will fit pretty snugly over the pegs, although a round 1x1 barrel won't do the trick, nor will Technic rounds. 1x2 full height bricks fit very nicely sideways, and a clever person could use this to attach a Built To Rule missile launcher of a reasonable color over one shoulder, to increase the G1 Mirage homage. Like, oh, this: http://www.dvandom.com/images/miragemissile.JPG In case you're curious, the connector I used was one of those Lego pieces that's 3x2 at the top and 1x2 at the bottom. It's not perfectly snug, although I could probably get a better fit if I used two "3x1 at top, 1x1 at bottom" pieces instead. OVERALL I like it. The chest looseness is certainly a significant issue, I'd have tweaked some colors and some joints could be stiffer, but it's a good design and a great vehicle mode. I can't quite strongly recommend it because of all the little problems, but it's a lot better than Prime. And, having spent half an hour struggling with Wheeljack's transformation back to vehicle mode so I can store it, I really appreciate the far less fussy transformation of Mirage. Dave Van Domelen, now just has Camshaft left, probably will be something of an anticlimax.