Hi Everyone!
 
Thank you for your continual support on the 1:350 Klingon D7 die-cast model from Star Trek™. We sincerely appreciate your support in making this possible! Currently we are in the tooling stage. This month, we have included an essay from Glen E. Swanson discussing the original Klingon D7 filming model. Please see the information below regarding the shipping survey.

You will receive an email today with your last chance to fill out the shipping survey and to pay the $50 USD shipping fee, if you have not already done so. If you do not fill out the survey and pay the shipping fee by May 25th, 2026, your order will be cancelled. Your address and shipping fee payment information must be input for your order to be finalized. This is for all regions including the US, CA, and UK.  

 

If you are not receiving reminders about this shipping survey through Backerkit please contact our consumer services team at [email protected] or 1 (800) 704 8697 for help!

If you have any other questions, please also reach out to the information above.
 
Thank you!

– TOMY+ Team

If it weren’t for the Aluminum Model Toys Corporation (AMT), Star Trek would never have had the shuttlecraft, a functional hangar bay or the Klingon ship. 

When AMT signed a contract with Desilu Studios in the fall of 1966, they did so because they got a pretty good deal for a yet unproven new show called Star Trek. In exchange for funding the building of a 22-inch filming model of the shuttlecraft and its hangar bay along with a full-sized studio set of the landing craft, the model company secured the rights to manufacture 18-inch plastic model kits of the starship Enterprise.

The deal was a gamble for the world’s largest kit manufacturer of model cars and trucks. When AMT printed early dealer advertising for the new model in October 1966, they only showed a studio press photo of the starship with the description “No. 921 Space Ship.” No mention of the show was given, a slight most likely due to the fact that prior to Star Trek, AMT had established itself as the premiere producer of “Star Cars” – model kits that featured popular movie and television vehicles and their celebrities. They had never before made models of rockets or spacecraft. 

AMT soon struck gold when their Enterprise kit sold over a million copies during its first year of production in 1967. As a result of this success, the company sought to produce another model kit from the show. 

In a deal like the one that helped them secure rights to produce the Enterprise kit, AMT once again traded something that the cash-starved television series could use. This time in exchange for the rights to produce model kits of the “Klingon Alien Battle Cruiser,” AMT provided the studio with two high fidelity models of the Klingon ship. One would be used for filming by the studio for the show while the other would be used as the master to make the tooling for the model kit.

Matt Jefferies, the designer of the original Enterprise, was tasked with creating the Klingon ship. “We had no need for a Klingon ship, nor did we have a budget to do one, or the time to design or build it,” explained Jefferies during a 2002 interview for Star Trek: The Magazine. “But AMT wanted a follow-up to the USS Enterprise NCC 1701 kit because it had sold over a million in the first year. So, although the Klingon ship was something new that would fit the show, it was primarily done for AMT.”

While Jefferies busied himself designing the Klingon ship. Stephen Whitfield (a.k.a Stephen Poe), author of the popular 1968 book “The Making of Star Trek,” worked behind the scenes to help with production and sales. 

Whitfield was employed by the Ptak & Richter Advertising Agency in Phoenix, Arizona. It was while working for Ptak that Whitfield became associated with Star Trek as the firm held the advertising account for AMT which Whitfield oversaw. Whitfield’s involvement with AMT at Ptak soon led to a full-time position with the model company as their national advertising and promotion director.

In a January 2, 1968, letter from Whitfield to John Reynolds, vice president of Paramount Pictures Television, Whitfield encouraged the studio to let Matt Jefferies come to AMT’s plant in Troy, Michigan to work on the master model “to guide our production staff in this last vital stage.”  Whitfield added that “we are quite convinced that a properly detailed model of the second ship will result in sales records paralleling those of the Enterprise kit.” Whitfield closed by warning that “we are also convinced that, poorly done, sales will be disappointing at best.”

Model kits of the Klingon ship began arriving in stores by early September 1968. AMT packaged them in long boxes that were labeled “As Seen on Star Trek.” The only problem was that at that time, nobody had yet seen the ship on the show.

At the end of September 1968, “The Enterprise Incident” beamed into living rooms, finally showing the Klingon ship, but a Klingon ship entirely occupied by Romulans. In the episode, Mr. Spock explains that the Klingons shared their technology with the Romulans, which was why the Enterprise crew encountered a Klingon ship in Romulan space. The real reason for the ship switch however was more down to Earth. The original filming model of the Romulan “Bird of Prey” ship could not be found after the earlier first-season shooting of the episode “Balance of Terror,” in which the new spaceship was featured. Roddenberry was forced to improvise by substituting a Klingon ship rather than build a new Romulan one. Meanwhile, by December of that same year, “Elaan of Troyius” finally aired, showing Klingons aboard a Klingon ship. 

The resulting confusion became a topic of discussion among fans. In a letter that was published in issue 9 (March 1969) of Lincoln Enterprises “Inside Star Trek” fanzine, C. John Fitzsimmons asked, “Why did the Romulans stop using the boomerang-shaped ships and start using the Klingon models?” D. C. Fontana replied, “The Romulans and Klingons formed a limited alliance to meet the threat of the Federation. Their treaty included help from the Klingons for the Romulans to change over to the faster, more powerful type of ship used by the Klingons. Also, the production staff of Star Trek felt that the Klingon model was visually more interesting and should be stressed to help sales of the model, besides.”

Despite the confusion, the new AMT Klingon ship model was a big seller. Even though the AMT kit has some differences from the actual filming model, it is surprisingly faithful to the original.

Next time you pick up a copy of AMT’s plastic model kit of the Klingon ship which is now reproduced by Polar Lights in a vintage long-box reissue, remember that this little 14.5-inch piece of styrene was responsible for some of the more memorable episodes that we have all grown to love from the original Star Trek television series.