Aluminum Model Toys - Star Trek, and Other Science Fiction

Star Trek, and Other Science Fiction

Around 1966, AMT obtained the plastic model rights to Star Trek, and developed a model kit of the Starship Enterprise, beginning a long association between AMT and both science fiction and television. The original model of the Enterprise was equipped with battery-operated lights, but even after the lights were deleted, a number of features from the lighted model persisted in the kit, including a removable "main deflector" assembly (which had covered the battery compartment cap and served as an on-off switch for the lighted model) and little indentations in the saucer section where the light bulbs were to be placed. By the 1980s, an ongoing series of revisions to the tooling to correct various inaccuracies (which unfortunately also created a few new inaccuracies, such as a deflector dish that is far too small, and incorrectly shaped fins on the nacelle caps) and mechanical problems eventually included deletion of the removable deflector dish. There was also a kit of the Klingon ship seen on the TV show, and it too was lighted in its first couple of issues.

By the mid-1970s, the Enterprise kit had been joined by a 1/12 scale figure of Spock, defending himself against a 3-headed reptile on an alien landscape, as well as models of a Romulan ship, a Starfleet Shuttlecraft, a model of the Enterprise Bridge, the Space Station K-7 (from the episode The Trouble With Tribbles), and a 3-piece "exploration set" (consisting of toylike, approximately 3/4 scale models of a phaser, a communicator, and a tricorder). Round 2 has reissued the Spock model, the Romulan Ship, the Enterprise and the K-7 Space Station, all from the original AMT molds. The Klingon ship is scheduled for a 2011 release.

In 1968 AMT also produced a kit of a science fiction spaceship designed by Matt Jeffries (the man that designed the Enterprise for Star Trek), the Leif Ericson. This tooling was reused in the middle 1970s, albeit without several engine and ship parts as well as the original stand and the landing gear to the scout ship, to produce a glow-in-the-dark "UFO" kit. The glow UFO model was reissued in 2010, from the original molds (this time including the missing ship parts and the Scout ship landing gear – although still missing engine parts on the main ship, as well as the original ship stand), by Round 2, which owns all the original AMT tooling. The Leif Ericson model will be reissued in 2011.

AMT-Ertl has also reissued the former Model Products Corporation kits of various Star Wars spacecraft, and has added several new designs based on the prequel trilogy.