I’m not a car guy. I can drive them just fine, but I don’t know a thing about them. I used to drive a Chrysler Sebring, and now I drive a Chevy Impala, but they might as well be the same car for all I really know. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that my favorite Transformers are a fire truck, a Mountain Dew machine and a wolf/eagle hybrid. There’s just no way to get me to care about Transformers who are cars, even if that’s kind of the entire premise.

Unless that car is the Batmobile, of course.

Why aren’t we funding this?!

Fortunately for geeks like me, not all of the Transformers are hot rods and sports cars. There’s a whole minority of weird but awesome vehicles out there. Of course, you’ve got your Beast Wars, your Constructicons and your transforming planets, but these 6 are some of the best unconventional Transformers in the bunch.

6. Hoist

His name sounds kind of dirty

He’s a tow truck. I just find that kind of neat. Most of the Transformers medics are ambulances, but c’mon, if one of the Autobots breaks down in vehicle mode, what’s an ambulance gonna do? That’s why Hoist makes the most sense as one of the team doctors. When Optimus Prime or Bumblebee gets damaged out in the field, someone’s gotta bring them back to base! That’s why you send out Hoist, who went for an actually useful vehicle mode instead of a Ferrari. Some guys just like to do their jobs and do them well. That’s Hoist. Rhymes with ‘moist’.

5. Astrotrain

Names are not this company’s strongsuit

So check this: Astrotrain can turn into both a space shuttle and a steam locomotive. Can you guess how they came up with his name? That’s one of the weird things about Transformers. They’re aliens, right? From another planet? And they’re thousands of years old? How does he get the name ‘Astrotrain’ if he’s never seen a train before? Or did he get to Earth and specifically hunt down a train and the space shuttle so that his name would continue to make sense? Personally, I dig the space shuttle choice. It wouldn’t make for a great airplane in battle, but he could go into space! The train part is a little wonky, though. Like, does he need to stay on the tracks to get around? That would pretty much limit his avenues of attack, right? Or maybe he’s a train that can travel through space! Either way, Astrotrain needs to rethink his life.

4. Cosmos

I kind of want to give him a wedgie

Cosmos is my kind of guy. Tasked with picking a vehicle mode to fit the whole ‘Robots in Disguise’ schtick, Cosmos went ahead and picked the sort of transformation that stands out so much that the entire History Channel is dedicated to filming him. Cosmos is a flying saucer, and according to his official bio, he sometimes gets bored and just pranks humans by pretending to be a real alien flying saucer (which, technically, he is; but you know what I mean).  There will always be people willing to believe in flying saucers, and I don’t mean aliens in general, I mean people believing in ‘flying saucers’ as the official alien craft. So here we’ve got a real alien who lives on Earth and pranks humans into believing in fake aliens. Good times.

3. Omega Supreme

Probably the kind of guy who insists on using his full name…in the third person

At some point, the people behind Transformers just started getting lazy with the names. ‘Omega Supreme’ couldn’t be more generic, and it’s not even the only boring name on this list. But there aren’t many Transformers like Omega Supreme! Born from the unholy mandate of ‘toys first’, Omega Supreme is a transforming headquarters. He’s a base, a station, a building plus accessories, consisting of his own built-in road, as well as a tank and a rocket ship. But he’s not three separate parts, he’s one Transformer that can turn into all of them, making him his own playset! He’s also as large as his transformation implies, but for some reason, the Autobots don’t simply have Omega Supreme step on Megatron and the Decepticons.

And yeah, I picked Omega Supreme over Metroplex, the transforming city. But at least Metroplex can theoretically function as a real city. Omega Supreme can’t do anything.

2. Perceptor

That’s not a cannon on his shoulder

Not a vehicle, but it had to be mentioned: Perceptor transforms into a microscope. A freakin’ microscope! But not an advanced laboratory microscope. He transformers into a simple microscope you might find in your high school science class. But why? What purpose does this serve? In the cartoon, Perceptor was a scientist, so I guess it makes some strange sense. But the Transformers are robots! Their eyes are robotic! Do they really need one of their own to transform into a microscope? Why don’t they just have microscopic vision built into their robot eyes? And that, of course, is the worst part of Perceptor: he needs somebody else to use him. When they’re vehicles or planes, the Transformers can drive and pilot themselves. But Perceptor is a stationary object that other people look through to see lab samples up close.

And what samples are they looking at? Do the Autobots really need to go all CSI to figure out that it’s the Decepticons who are up to no good this time?

This probably qualifies Perceptor as the dumbest cartoon scientist of all time.

1. Ultra Magnus

He gets the awesome picture!

There are a lot of weird Transformers out there, and not all of them made my list. But looking through the unconventional vehicles, I had to put Ultra Magnus on top (I told you there would be other boring names). Ultra Magnus transformers into a car carrier. There’s just something gloriously silly about a Transformer turning into one of those car carriers you see on the highway. Most of the Transformers become cars, capable of driving themselves, but Ultra Magnus, one of the Autobots’ chief lieutenants, can turn into a car carrier to give them a lift if they need it.

And considering the fact that Ultra Mangus took over as leader when Optimus Prime died, his transformation is kind of a metaphor. He was there to carry the Autobots when they needed him. So that makes Ultra Magnus the most unconventional Transformer of all time: he transforms into a metaphor.

And a car carrier, which, again, is just awesome. Hoist is probably jealous. Or maybe they’re drinking buddies.

Honorable Mention: Junkheap

You could have been so much more! So much more!

I’m still pissed at Transformers: Age of Extinction for toying with my love of Junkheap, the garbage truck Transformer. After a very, very brief appearance in Dark of the Moon, it was teased that he would return in this summer’s new film! I got so excited, you guys, seriously! I don’t know why I got so excited, but I did! I really clung to the awesomeness of a garbage truck Transformer! It’s such a neat, unconventional idea!

But, of course, the garbage truck showed up for like 2 seconds of screen time, and it wasn’t Junkheap, it was that new, weird, man-made nanobot Transformer built by Stanley Tucci. Look, it makes sense in context. I’m just still hurting. I’ll never trust Michael Bay again.

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Who are your favorite weird Transformers? I restricted my list to just include normal Autobots and Decepticons, but there are so many unconventional Transformers out there! Who did I miss?

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