What Happened to the Original KLINGON Ship Tooling Model Built by AMT?

An essay by Glen Swanson

In my earlier essays, I discussed the origins of the two original Klingon ship models that were made by AMT for Star Trek. In 1968, two master models were funded by the Michigan-based model company in exchange for the rights to make model kits of the ship. One model was built to be filmed for the television series, while the second model was constructed as a tooling master that would be used to produce the AMT model kits. These two Klingon ship models were constructed at AMT’s Speed and Custom Shop in Phoenix, Arizona which was headed by legendary hot rod builder Gene Winfield. The second essay examined what happened to the AMT tooling model. This essay attempts to explore what happened to the original AMT-built filming model.

At the conclusion of the third and final season of Star Trek, the original Klingon D7 model that was built by AMT was given to the show’s art director Matt Jefferies who designed it and the original starship Enterprise. Jefferies in turn gave his model to the Smithsonian. In a 2002 interview with Star Trek: The Magazine, Jefferies said, “I was trying to figure out how to pack it up to ship it. Dorothy Fontana was headed back to DC and agreed to take it for me; we put it in a plastic garbage bag, which was not deep enough to take the whole thing, so the head of it stuck out. Somebody on the airliner recognized it, so they unwrapped it and it toured the airliner!” The model was formally handed over to the National Air and Space Museum on November 2, 1973, to join the permanent collections of the Smithsonian. 

The filming model was not immediately put on display at the Smithsonian though it did make several appearances at local Star Trek conventions. In a series of interviews that I conducted with Greg Kennedy who worked for the National Air and Space Museum during this time, he described how the model went on display at several local conventions hosted by the University of Maryland in College Park. “I took both the Klingon ship and the Tholian/Aurora ship models to display at the August Party Convention in 1975 and 1976,” said Kennedy. “A condition of them borrowing the models was that a staff member from the Smithsonian had to accompany them. Being the most junior staff member at the time, the job fell to me.” 

Few photographs are known to exist of the actual filming model. In a 1976 article that was published in the fan-produced publication Trek: The Magazine for Star Trek Fans, there appears a grainy black and white photo of the model that supposedly was taken shortly after it arrived at the Smithsonian.

On February 20, 1976, representatives from the Estes model rocket company visited the National Air and Space Museum to show curators copies of their new flying model rocket kit of the Enterprise and Klingon ships. NASM director Michael Collins brought out the filming model of the D7 to pose for photos with officials including Dane Boles of Estes Industries. 

In an effort to chronicle the scant known details of the original filming model, Doug Drexler, an Academy Award-winning visual effects artist, was allowed to visit the Smithsonian in 1976 to take a closer look at the model for a feature article that appeared in Star Trek Giant Poster Book No. 10 the following year. The photos that were accompanied the article were, at that time, the most detailed then available with the added bonus that they were in color! 

Sometime after Drexler’s article, the Smithsonian loaned their D7 model to Magicam to use as a reference to build the new Klingon ship models for Paramount’s proposed Phase II television series. Unbeknownst to the Smithsonian at the time, Magicam disassembled the original model to make it easier to make molds of the ship. A number of ’pyro’ models of the D7 were then cast from these molds. Some of the pyro molds can be seen in early test footage. Once Magicam was done, the model was reassembled, repainted and returned to the Smithsonian. 

After the model was returned by Magicam, the Smithsonian placed it on public display at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Facility. Also known as Silver Hill, this offsite facility was open to the public for tours starting in 1977 where Star Trek fans could see the model up close. 

When Phase II became Star Trek: The Motion Picture, model maker Greg Jein, who was working at the time for Magicam, rescued one of the pyro models and the molds from which they were made. Jein then used these to create the filming model as seen in the 1996 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Trials and Tribble-ations.” 

In 1991, the Smithsonian sent their D7 model to Ed Miarecki as part of an effort to restore the Enterprise in preparation for the 1992 Star Trek exhibit that the Air and Space Museum hosted for the 25th anniversary of the series. After that Star Trek exhibit closed in 1993, the D7 model was taken off display and put into storage at the National Air and Space Museum where it resides today. 

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This series will conclude with the fourth and final essay which will examine the color of the filming model Klingon ship.