MAGNIFICENT!

Vehicle Mode
The toy does a pretty good job in not having seam lines flow throughout the vehicle as it does on Universe/Henkei Ironhide. There are seam lines visible on the mid-side sections, but they do blend reasonably well. Given the nature of this toy, I'm impressed with how they've worked in most of the seam lines into the vehicle. The lack of wing mirrors is unfortunate, but the toy is decked out in all other kinds of exquisite detail, such as wipers, head/tail lights, painted door handles (incl. the rear hatch), chrome bumpers/headlights, and the windows are all transparent blue; none of them are solid painted plastic. The toy-accurate face on the "seat" is a magnificent nod to the G1 toy. I was surprised to see that the mobile deck is actually a completely separate accessory, much like Tracks' flight stand. This means that the MP Ironhide toy has a 100% self contained transformation! i.e. all of the vehicle parts are absorbed into the robot mode! And to be able to pull off a mostly cartoon-accurate looking robot mode from that without using any cheats with detachable parts makes me take my hat off the the team at TakaraTOMY. Well done.

Transformation
As one might expect, it is challenging. But it's also quite intuitive and importantly fun! As others have mentioned, the robot mode is also much more solid than some other MP cars, and this is achieved through strategic use of pegs and even a pair of snap-lock clips on the shoulders.

Accessories
It feels like Ironhide comes with accessories to represent almost all of his body gimmicks seen in the cartoon. There are even three different liquid shooters (fingers, wide nozzle and thin nozzle). The mobile deck is essentially Ironhide's personal equipment rack, which is fitting considering that this was the original purpose of this toy in Diaclone. The face is a lot easier to remove than on other MPs. The helmet crest serves as a release switch which ejects the face. Oh, and there's a storage space for the spare face on the mobile deck, so uh... we should be able to recreate G1 comic Ratchet's ultimate fate (re: ReGen One).

Robot mode
A really great, solid robot. I wish the shoulders would be able to swing up more, but otherwise there are no real flaws with this mould. I know that some people aren't happy with the two panels on either side of the hips but as we all know, the cartoon cheated reality, whereas TakaraTOMY cannot, because they're engineers... not wizards! This infograph shows just how much of the vehicle is seen in the robot mode in the G1 cartoon model.

MP Ironhide manages to be a fairly close facsimile without resorting to any cheating by having any parts removed.

Overall
This is one of the most impressive Transformers toys that I have come across in a while -- it's hard for me to find any serious fault in this figure. MP Ironhide has well exceeded my expectations.


Highly recommended

PHOTOS

Vehicle mode






Robot mode - toy accurate rifle


Cartoon accurate pistols


Liquid shooting fingers


Liquid shooting nozzles


Scanner


Jets




Missile launcher


Mobile deck




I was going to edit this on MS Paint, but it's already well past my bedtime.


Close up of the toy-accurate seat/face


Toy-accurate fan mode