10 Transformers And The Real-Life Vehicles They Are Based On

Some of the most iconic vehicles in popular culture aren't even real cars at all: They're robots. Giant, shape-shifting, planet-destroying aliens that happened to disguise themselves as perfectly ordinary motorcars, trucks, and jets. The keen-eyed will have realized that many are actually based on real-life vehicles, ranging from good old American muscle to hulking 18-wheelers. It's truly a wild universe: A Peterbilt cab-over became the noble leader of an intergalactic war, an off-road fire truck fell from grace to become a villain, and even the humble Chevy Spark got a fair amount of screen time as one of the good guys.

All that's fine and well, but we must point out that the creators have done a fantastic job of mapping the personality of each robot to the vehicle it transforms into. The flashy sports cars became vain warriors obsessed with speed and style, the military trucks turned into gruff soldiers, and the emergency responders became heroic medics and rescue specialists. Over the years, the Transformers franchise has also spawned many merchandise lines, including Transformers-themed toys, Transformers-themed cameras from Canon, and even a Transformers-themed phone from Spark, all of which gained fair levels of success.

Note: There are spoilers in this article for "Revenge of the Fallen" (2009) and "Dark Side of The Moon" (2013). With all that in mind, here are 10 Transformers and the real-life vehicles that they are based on:

Skids and his brother, Mudflap, make up the twins —  clumsy, bumbling, yet fiercely loyal Autobots (the good guys). Both are based on Chevrolet vehicles, with Mudflap opting to be a Chevy Trax concept vehicle, and Skids opting to be a Chevrolet Spark. In the films, the twins are portrayed as being shorter than the other robots, which is probably one of the reasons both chose to be compact cars — both the Spark and Trax are really small. In their first scene in the movie, the twins are an ice-cream truck, with Skids being the front half while Mudflap makes up the rear.  

Upon reaching the Transformers' base, the twins scanned two Chevy concept cars. Skids chose the Spark, which he then transforms into, and Mudflap scanned the Chevrolet Trax. Initially, Mudflap had wanted to become the Spark, but Skids kicked him to the side and scanned the Spark for himself. When in robot form, Skids has a disproportionately large right arm and right eye, which gave him a bit of a comical look when he first appeared in the 2009 film, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen". In the film, after transforming, Skids and Mudflap would both go with Bumblebee to rescue the main protagonist (Sam Witwicky) from Megatron, and the twins would also go in search of Jetfire (covered later in this list) to get his wings for Optimus Prime.

Optimus Prime, like Skids, is an Autobot. In fact, the semi-truck Optimus Prime is actually the leader of the resistance movement, so to speak, and he is a more elite version of the good guys, being the last surviving member of a particular robot tribe who called themselves the Primes. Though the definition of what a Prime is varies by continuity, generally, a Prime is one of the leaders of Cybertron, which, believe it or not, makes Optimus (main protagonist) the brother of Megatron (main antagonist) — a fact that not a lot of people pick up on. 

Bumblebee (featured later) sent a special beacon to Earth. Optimus followed and, upon arrival, attempted to locate it. Shortly after, Optimus scanned a gorgeous Peterbilt 379, into which he then transformed, sporting a glorious red-blue flame design with orange accents. This form was not canon and was a controversial choice by live-action director Michael Bay, but it went down well with the audience, and Optimus would maintain this form until the third movie in the franchise. The exact Peterbilt from the movies would later come up for sale at a Barrett-Jackson auction, replete with accessories and modifications.

Optimus kept his Peterbilt alias until the fourth movie, when he went on the run from Cemetery Wind, a rogue CIA task force out to exterminate every Transformer after the Battle of Chicago. Cemetery Wind is considered the primary antagonist in the fourth film, "Transformers: Age of Extinction". The U.S. government was not aware of Cemetery Wind because the government was still on relatively good terms with the Autobots. However, all Autobots had to go into hiding due to the risk posed by this team, which showed that it was willing to kill even the good guys. Optimus' Peterbilt was not exactly, er, stealthy, which is why, when he was on the run, Optimus scanned a Marmon HDT AC 86 and transformed into it. 

Finding a Marmon is actually not too surprising, because Optimus was hiding out in Texas, which is where Marmon actually operated before going out of business in 1997, after changing hands several times. Marmon vehicles were considered the "Cadillacs of the truck world", and Marmon has made several beautiful and weird cars, including one with a V-16 engine in the early 1900s. Mamon went out of business in 1933, then came back with a bang after the Second World War, only to go out of business again just before the turn of the century.

Of all the robots on this list, Bumblebee is arguably the second-most famous, after only Optimus Prime himself. An interesting quirk about Bumblebee in the live-action films is that we don't hear his voice — Bumblebee is mute, having had his voice box damaged in combat, according to lore. Fun fact: According to the comics (canon timeline only), Bumblebee was originally a 1980s VW Beetle. His portrayal of the iconic Camaro in the movies marked a stylistic departure by director Michael Bay. In the films, Bumblebee remained a Chevrolet Camaro, though he did switch generations. In the beginning, when he was with Sam Witwicky, he was an older generation version, that, for want of better words, was a rust bucket. 

Sam Witwicky's on-screen girlfriend would poke a little fun at Sam for driving the rust bucket, at which point Bumblebee zoomed off in a huff, scanned a newer generation Camaro, and came back all shiny and new. There were four main Camaros in the movies: For the first two, a special one-off fifth-gen Camaro was used, with the third movie getting an SS version, and for the fourth movie, Chevy made a concept car that essentially was a sneak peek of the new generation. Finally, Chevy released another car in 2016 for Transformers, which again previewed the upcoming refresh. All four of these were auctioned off by Barrett-Jackson with the proceeds going to help military families, though sadly, all were scrap titles.

Sentinel, just like Optimus, is a member of the Primes, who were the leaders of the Transformers. Unbeknownst to the Autobots, Sentinel is an ally of Megatron, who was the main antagonist in many of the live-action films. Initially, the Autobots thought that Sentinel had been lost along with a vessel called the Ark, which is why it was the consensus until the third film that Optimus was the last remaining Prime. We first come across Sentinel in the last film of the first trilogy (i.e., in the third film), which was "Dark of the Moon". In it, Sentinel was seen as a Rosenbauer Panther 6x6, which is essentially an airport fire truck. 

Specifically, Sentinel was an aircraft rescue fire-fighting version of the Panther known as an ARFF, and not many know that the character was actually voiced by Spock from Star Trek (Leonard Nimoy). Optimus Prime was actually the successor to Sentinel Prime, which made Sentinel's betrayal of the Autobots all the more poignant. However, we should point out that Sentinel only allied with the Decepticons to give Cybertron a fighting chance — he is an unwavering patriot who will go to any lengths to protect his home world, and didn't think that the Autobot way would help the Transformers. It should be noted that ARFFs are required by law to be lime green in color; However, the producers made Sentinel red over black and also tinted the windows.

The next Transformer on our list is the first non-road-going vehicle, and is also the first Decepticon (bad guy). His name is Jetfire, and he was a Seeker, which were the highest-trained Decepticon commandos. The Decepticon overlords tasked Seekers with finding the sun-harvesting machine as well as the tomb of the Primes, both of which were on Earth. The shard of the All Spark that Sam Witwicky had with him led Wheelie (a Decepticon), as well as the twins from earlier (Skids and Mudflap), to Jetfire's resting place, where he had entered a special sleep mode called stasis lock. 

Wheelie (a phone) was hunting for Jetfire independently of the Autobots and Sam Witwicky. The All Spark shard awoke Jetfire from slumber, after which the humans learned that the Seekers were abandoned by the Decepticons on Earth long ago, which is why Jetfire vowed to become an Autobot. At some point several decades ago, Jetfire scanned and became a Lockheed-Martin SR-71 Blackbird, although he was slowly falling apart due to years of neglectful maintenance. In the live-action movies, Jetfire was portrayed as a devastating mercenary, having killed the formidable Decepticon Mixmaster single-handedly, as well as having killed Scorponok despite being mortally wounded. After killing Scorponok, Sam Witwicky revives the dead Optimus, and upon seeing a living Prime, Jetfire tells him to take his parts to defeat the Fallen, sacrificing himself to victory. 

By far one of the coolest robot vehicles in the series, Hound was a specialist foot soldier who fought for the Autobots under Optimus Prime. Through the live-action franchise, Hound prefers to be seen as off-road go-anywhere vehicles, and is most prominently featured as an Oshkosh FMTV 6x6 Tactical carrier, though he's also seen as a Benz Unimog in some parts. FMTV stands for Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles, and have dozens of uses across the U.S. military, including, but not limited to, general resupply missions, ammo replenishment, recovery, engineering support roles, platforms for mobile weapon and defence systems, as well as being combat support units, according to Oshkosh official. One of Hound's key personality features is that he sails into combat completely unbothered, ready to draw one of his (many, many) guns at the drop of a hat. 

Once Sideswipe went missing, Hound became Optimus Prime's second-in-command, also taking on the role of chief medic once Ratchet was later killed in "Transformers: Age of Extinction". Lastly, Hound has been on Earth for centuries. He is known to have fought alongside George Washington and in the Second World War, where he served in the U.S. medical services, which is why he had the necessary experience to replace Ratchet. Oshkosh Defence is apparently chuffed about its rugged all-terrain vehicle being featured in the live-action franchise, as it even posted about Hound on its official Facebook account in a reminiscing post with the hashtag "FlashbackFriday".

One of the most iconic bad guys, Starscream, is considered by many to be the second-in-command to Lord Megatron. Starscream, like the other Decepticons, forgoes the regular vehicles preferred by the Autobots in favor of something more interesting — the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. Indeed, this tends to be a theme, with the Autobots choosing more subtle transports, and the Decepticons choosing absolutely ridiculous things to transform into, such as Devastator (a combine harvester), Brawl (a heavily modified M1A1 Abrams Tank), Igor (a reprogrammed Transformer head), and Stinger (2014 Pagani Huayra), to name a few. Subtle, Decepticons. 

Megatron initially saved Starscream's life on Cybertron during a war, which made Starscream fiercely loyal to him, though little else is known about his past. After arriving on Earth, Starscream scanned and became an F-22 Raptor, though in the books, he was an F-15. When Megatron would go off in search of the All Spark (whose location was known only to Witwicky), Starscream took over as leader of the Decepticons in Megatron's absence. In terms of his choice of vehicle, the F-22 Raptor is America's finest air superiority fighter jet, unrivalled by anything currently known to be in any country's possession worldwide. In fact, the F-22 is so superior that the U.S. forbids Lockheed-Martin from selling it to any foreign power, including U.S. allies, to keep its operational capabilities a secret — a fitting choice for a very dangerous Decepticon.

The second-to-last Transformer on our list is Starscream's perpetual sidekick, Blackout, who is also a Decepticon. His choice of vehicle is an aerial one, being a Sikorsky MH-53J Pave Low III multirole helicopter, which, in our opinion, is one of the sickest-looking Transformers, from across all the universes. Because the Sikorsky MH-53J is used by the U.S. armed forces (both in real life as well as in the movies), Blackout is able to disguise himself as a U.S. armed forces vehicle, which he uses to his advantage to hunt Sam Witwicky in the 2007 live-action debut movie, Transformers. 

The Pave Low III Sikorsky is what is called a combat search and rescues (CSAR) helicopter, and is actually built on the same platform as the U.S. Navy's CH-53 Sea Stallion and the Air Force's HH-53 Jolly Green Giant, with the main purpose of the Pave Low III being to replace the aging Jolly Green Giant. Though it was developed for the Air Force, after the Iranian hostage crisis of 1980, the nine newly-delivered MH-53s were promptly handed over to special operations forces, where the fleet would eventually grow to over 40 units. It is an extremely capable and much-loved helicopter that has saved many lives, though the model is now retired in favor of newer, more fuel-efficient, and better-equipped variants.

Lastly, we have Bonecrusher, who is seen in the live-action films as a Buffalo mine-protected clearance vehicle, or MPCV for short. And yes, the big arm you see on the front is stock on the MPCV, and is used to dig up mines that have been buried underground. The formidable-looking vehicle is made by a company based out of Ladson, South Carolina called Force Protection, who cleverly used the Transformers movie to debut its latest (and coolest) Frankenstein-ish creation. Known colloquially as the Buffalo, it did a lot of important work in both Iraq and Afghanistan, helping to clear mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from the many battlefields in the theater. 

Power coming from a beefy 12-liter Mack ASET AI-400 engine that produced 400 hp and a whopping 1,450 lb-ft of torque, paired to a six-speed transmission, with 30,000-pound front axles and 50,000-pound rear axles. It should also be noted that though the Buffalo-H has a top speed of 70 mph, the tires are rated for 55 mph, though that's plenty fast for the Buffalo's dedicated role. It rides on monstrous 52-inch wheels and also features thick metal armor covering the underbelly, allowing it to resist even direct explosions. This means the Buffalo is designed to take a beating while keeping its occupants safe, all while clearing a path for vehicles and troops to follow behind it.