Encyclopedia / Alt-modes / Car
Ligier JS11 Formula One Car
A 1979 French Grand Prix car reproduced so faithfully, sponsor decals and all, that its toy carries a cigarette brand and an oil company on a children's action figure.
The machine
What it actually is
The Ligier JS11 was built by Equipe Ligier for the 1979 Formula One season, designed by Gerard Ducarouge and Michel Beaujon around the ground-effect principles Lotus had proved the year before. Powered by the Cosworth DFV V8, it won the opening two rounds of 1979 in Jacques Laffite's hands and led the championship early before development stalled. The team ran the traditional numbers 25 and 26, and wore Gitanes cigarette and Elf fuel branding in French racing blue.
Mirage is the aristocrat of the Autobots, old money, uneasy about the war, faintly appalled by his comrades. A Formula One car is exactly right: expensive, single-seat, built for a track rather than a road, and completely useless as a disguise. His electro-disruptor gives him invisibility in the cartoon, which pairs neatly with a character who would rather not be here.
The toy is remarkable for how much of the real car it kept. The decals include 'Citanes', a deliberate one-letter corruption of Gitanes, complete with the brand's dancing gypsy figure sitting on the robot's waist, plus Elf and Ligier's own name. Mirage's chassis was also engineered to be fired from Optimus Prime's trailer ramp, which is why the body is so low and flat. It is also famously fragile at the waist pivot.
Real-world
Specification
| Make | Ligier |
| Model | JS11 Formula One chassis |
| Years | 1979 season (JS11/15 into 1980) |
| Notes | Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 litre V8, roughly 480 hp; ground-effect design; won the 1979 Argentine and Brazilian Grands Prix with Jacques Laffite. |
Before Transformers
The Diaclone original
Diaclone Car Robot 'F-1 Ligier JS11' (Takara, 1983), sold with a Diaclone driver in the cockpit. An ultra-rare variant came in the Diaclone Powered Convoy gift set and has been extensively bootlegged.
The part nobody covers properly
Licensing
Unlicensed, and unusually blatant about it. The toy reproduces Ligier's own name, Elf's oil branding and a barely disguised Gitanes cigarette logo. The misspelling to 'Citanes' shows Takara knew there was an issue and treated a one-letter change as sufficient, the same tactic used on Jazz's 'Martinii'. There is no evidence any of the three companies pursued it. The knock-on effect came later and from an unexpected direction: for the 2004 Robot Masters line Takara could not use the name Ligier, Mirage's Japanese name, and released the toy as 'Rijie' instead, a phonetic dodge, although the instruction sheet still says Ligier. Mirage is also the only original 1984 Autobot never reissued, because Hasbro and Takara have stated the mould is lost or damaged, so the licensing question never had to be revisited for him. Alternators Mirage (2006) became a properly licensed Ford GT, and modern Generations Mirages are generic closed-canopy racers. Rise of the Beasts made him a licensed Porsche 911 (964) Carrera RS 3.8, the first Porsche the franchise ever cleared.
Detail
Trivia
- The dancing figure on Mirage's robot-mode belt is the Gitanes cigarette logo.
- Mirage keeps racing number 26 even on the 2006 Classics figure, forty years of continuity via a decal.
- He is the only 1984 Autobot car never officially reissued, because the tooling is gone.
- Chinese factories obtained or recreated the mould and produce 'perfect' bootlegs in clear, smoke and red.
- Machine Wars Mirage (1997) turned into a Ligier JS39, keeping the real-world lineage even in a clearance-bin toy.
Keep reading
Related alt-modes
Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle
The best-selling single-design car in history, and the alt mode that made the smallest Autobot
CarPorsche 935 Turbo
A Group 5 silhouette racer with a flattened nose and a whale tail, copied from a specific real
CarNissan (Datsun) 280ZX Police Car
A Japanese sports coupe wearing American highway patrol livery, a combination that never existe
CarLamborghini Countach LP500S
The wedge that defined 1980s bedroom-wall car culture, copied without permission twice over and
CarNissan Fairlady Z / 280ZX
The same S130 Z-car twice: once as a silver street coupe, once as a Group 5 Super Silhouette ra
CarChevrolet Corvette C3 Stingray
A late C3 Corvette with a flame on the bonnet and flip-out wings, and the rare G1 alt mode that
ArchiveAll alt-modes
Every disguise in the catalogue.