A LOOK AT THE AMT STAR TREK SHUTTLECRAFT

 

A few photos I’ve taken of the AMT Star Trek Shuttlecraft, in suitable surroundings of course.

Although the original kit was released in 1974, mine is the AMT/ERTL Special Edition ‘Galileo II’ version which came out in 1991, and is now discontinued.

It’s a simple kit which presents few problems during assembly and painting. It's got a simple interior; I added a few details to the console and some illumination.

The big let down for the purist is it’s full of inaccuracies. Not small things that the nit-pickers like to home in on. I can live with the circular landing pads which should be rectangular, and decals having the wrong shade of red. It’s the big things like the wrong rear engine detail and a flat roof which should have a slope. Those are the details which AMT really messed up.

Surprising really, as AMT got the job of building the original Galileo filming prop for the series, in exchange, according to Desilu documents, for the licencing rights to commercially produce a model of the USS Enterprise.

However, for anyone who wants to boldly go to the trouble of altering the kit, a resin conversion set is available from Lunar Models.

For anyone else, the simpler solution in my opinion is just buy the Polar Lights kit which is a much better, larger and infinitely more accurate version of the Shuttlecraft. Remarkably, I’m in the middle of building one myself at the moment; A post on that to follow

Back to the AMT Shuttlecraft. In spite of it’s shortfalls I still have a fondness for it’s simpler lines.

Its look takes me back the beginning of the seventies and the Star Trek strip which I read in the final series of TV21, illustrated at that time by Mike Noble, Harold Johns, Ron Turner and others.

Judging by their respective artwork of the Shuttlecraft, any reference material in their possession appeared to give them a reasonable amount of side panel detail (although not the wing)and probably some of the front. (Their illustrations usually show the front screen is generally divided into two rather than three.) The rear of the Shuttlecraft looks like the back of a van and just total assumption on their part.

I don’t know whether their reference was in colour, but the red lower hull probably just looked more striking in the comic strip rather than grey, although Mike Noble did go for grey occasionally.

The Shuttlecraft design was originally envisioned by art director, Matt Jeffries as sleek and streamlined, but as that proved too expensive to build for the studio, AMT stepped in and offered to build a full size studio prop based on a design by Gene Winfield, in exchange for the rights to build a model of the USS Enterprise.

Remarkably, after spending several years outdoors on a studio backlot, and passing through several owners that original prop still exists, having been recently restored to it’s former glory by Star Trek superfan, Adam Schneider.