Hasbro bring us something oddly that Takara choose not to do, a classics repaint of Mirage into Dragstrip, don’t get to excited though because that’s all this is, a simple
repaint.
Hasbro released four characters on there website which were Hasbro-Toy-Shop only items and these were four repaints of currently released Classics Figures. The repaints consisted of Dragstrip who is a repaint of Mirage, Tank Megatron who
is sporting his G1 colors, Overkill who is a repaint of Grimlock and Prime who looks almost identical to his already out there figure aside from the yellow paint applications are now grey.
The figure in robot mode looks almost like Dragstrip until you place him next to Mirage and then you kinda notice just how lazy this repaint all seems. The face is just Mirages but painted purple and considering Hasbro went through all the trouble of making a box for the figure to be sold in…well you would have expected a new head cast at the very least. The paint applications on Dragstrip also just seem very bland in comparison to a lot of Custom Repainted Dragstrip's that were done several months ago by many fans and long before this repaint even came out. The other
disappointing thing about this repaint is the thing that made Dragstrip special was the fact he had 6 wheels yet this is just a repaint and only has the 4 which Mirage also has, this seems extremely lazy because if you have a spare Mirage it’s a job that takes 20minutes and the 6 wheels can be added easily.
The body is great because it has loads of movement and many poses can be made from this character because he has all the ball joints in the right places such as the elbows and knees and shoulders and hip areas. The face seems slightly small for the body and sadly there is only one gun for the figure which is just the front of the vehicle mode and doesn’t really resemble a gun much at all.
Vehicle mode looks good and transforms exactly the same as Mirage does but you feel as if you losing something by the fact that in vehicle mode there are only 4 wheels when really for Dragstrip there should be 6 because that’s what makes his vehicle mode so different from Mirages…or at least that’s what its meant to do. The vehicle mode still looks nice and does resemble the look of Dragstrip to a point but the yellowing paint application just doesn’t seem right on the figure because it seems like it needs to be darker or heavier or something but instead it just looks bland and quickly done.
The packaging for Dragstrip is rather impressive considering this is a Hasbro item. Instead of just being MOSC the item actually comes in a specialist box which shows whitened out images of the figure on the front behind a black background and images of the toy on the back while inside the figure is in a plastic bubble container and the front tip of the box opens up a bit like a book, Think Takara G1 Reissue Bookstyle and you will understand what I am saying.
The figure is a good figure but all he is only just a plain repaint and that alone makes this really disappointing. Dragstrip could have been so much more than what he was and he could have looked amazing like many of the Fan Customs floating around but instead all he is, is just a plain bland repaint of Mirage and considering he costs around $20-25 you feel as if Hasbro could have at least made the effort and made a new face for this mould.
A nice addition to the Classics line but leaves you feeling as is Dragstrip was never completed before he was officially released and not really worth the $20-25 asking price.
