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The Nike Air Max Liquid Racer is one of those curious remixes that appears in the showroom each year. The Air Max Skyline, looking like the Triax or ST's poorer brother is one example. Or the remixed Pegasus lines of the Air Twilight Runner. Sometimes they're above-average heel wrestlers to the Ted DiBiase of footwear world that is the Air Max 90. They veer toward contender status but get Million Dollar Dreamed by a certain cheapness. They're not built with queues and collaborations in mind. They're made as an expansion of existing Nike heritage running design language, on existing tooling, at a reasonable pricepoint. Rather than get cynical about it, we tend to look at these wearable experiments with a certain pity. But guess what? In the right colours, the Liquid Racer is a half decent shoe.

Some imagery leaked of a sample in what looked a little like a Wildwood palette, and this makeup captures the titular fluidity with a lenticular colour change pearlescent effect on that curved aqua-coloured paneling. A shame then that this colourway's not getting a release. At least not on these shores.

Sat on the dual density '89 Air Max Light sole unit (Anyone remember the fine 1997 incarnation of the Air Max Light with the Humara-style nylon "strapping"?), the upper's got a watered-down (H20 wordplay intended and we're talking 10 litres to one tablespoon of Ribena) Kukini vibe going on, that tongue shape has shades of Talaria, and the angled swoosh is a little Terra Humara. But that Air Max 95 style lettering just looks cheap. This isn't some premium execution with an innovation preoccupation, and it's not made with geeky scrutiny in mind, but while some of the shinier, plasticky variations just looked crappy, we think this was a better effort than the usual unhyped extras that sit quietly on store shelves.

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