A while back, we took a look at some oversized Mini-Con cars. That was all well and good, but that piece didn't sit right with me for a long time because I felt that something was missing. As it turns out, something was indeed absent from that piece: the fourth member of that set! Well, I just located that figure while searching for a bootleg to spotlight this week, and I think it'll do the job nicely.

Transfans (as in Transformers fans, not the other definition) familiar with Transformers: Armada will recognize this as Corona Sparkplug, a slightly retooled and presumably powered-up version of Optimus Prime's tiny partner. Whereas the actual Mini-Con sported a gold chrome finish, this oversized knockoff is simply cast in silver/grey plastic with red plastic underneath for the limbs... which, while being significantly less snazzy, still manages to look pretty darned good. If the pieces pegged together more securely and the arms weren't so floppy at the shoulder hinges (if I didn't have them positioned as such, they'd collapse into the body and appear nearly indistinguishable from the torso), this would be a pretty successful robot mode for a bootleg.

So here it is in vehicle mode. Aside from the bits of red plastic peeking out here and there, it looks pretty decent -- kinda reminds me of the DeLorean from Back to the Future (even though I never saw those movies). As with all of the bootlegs from this set, it doesn't fit together perfectly (owing to a few well-placed pegs, however, it does fit together quite well) but rolls superbly.

As I say often, except for the general bootleg flaws of floppy limbs and somewhat ill-fitting parts, this is a fairly fun knockoff. The potential DeLorean connection is appealing (whether it was intentional or not), the robot mode looks pretty decent (though Bootlegger King Boss's forces can't take credit for that; Sparkplug was one of the more attractive Mini-Cons), and the silver/grey and red color scheme is highly attractive. And in any case, it's always kinda neat to have oversized knockoff versions of Mini-Cons! I mean, bootlegs are generally pretty crappy, but if you're going to knock off toys (or anything) you should at least do it in a way that makes for fresh, interesting, or intriguing results. Doubling the size of a toy and changing the colors are certainly effective ways of doing that... as Hasbro well knows, especially in the latter case!

__________

Want to see even more bootleg toys? Find past and future editions of Bootleg Tuesday right here.