[@Forsythe] You've probably never head of Whirl before because (sadly) he never appeared in any of the movies or TV series. Whirl has only popped up in the Transformers comics since 1985. He first appeared was in the Marvel Transformers comic line for awhile as a Wrecker. But like many characters in the comic series, he had varied scenes. He also appeared in the more recent Regeneration One series from Marvel too.

He also had a [i][u]brief[/u][/i] appearances in the Transformers Animated comic, the Dreamwave comic series, and a few others too.

His current and more developed and fleshed out appearance (you end up feeling bad for him later on) is in the IDW comic series (mainly in Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye). Its possibly this series is where Whirl is more defined and is plenty popular with the following fandom.