10 Star Trek Toys That We Loved

The relationship between Aluminium Model Toys (AMT) and Star Trek pre-dates the debut of The Original Series. In 1966, AMT cut a deal with Desilu Studios and Gene Roddenberry before The Man Trap had even aired. The studio got help with sets on set, and AMT got to release their starship model kits. This meant AMT would go on to build the 'real' full-scale interior and exterior of the shuttlecraft Galileo as well as the filming model.

In fact, AMT didn't release the 'Galileo 7 Shuttlecraft' model kit until 1974. Their first kit, which went on sale in 1966, was of the USS Enterprise and proved to be a huge success. Their second was the 'Klingon Battle Cruiser' (i.e. the D7), released in 1968. In a bizarre reversal of events, the Klingon battle cruiser was designed by TOS art director and production designer Matt Jefferies, not for the studio, but exclusively for AMT as an 'out-of-hours' type project. The studio then used an AMT 'master tooling' model as the filming model for the (D7) Klingon battlecruiser in season three.

Over the decades since, AMT have produced more Enterprise model kits than Scotty could swear at the computer about, and plenty more Klingon battle cruisers and birds-of-prey. They also brought out kits of everything from Deep Space K-7 to Deep Space 9, as well as numerous Cardassian, Vulcan, Romulan, and Ferengi ships, the Defiant, Runabouts, Voyager, and the list goes on.

Although now owned by the same company — Round 2 — it was Polar Lights not AMT that released the latest model kits for the USS Shenzhou, the USS Discovery, and the new-look USS Enterprise NCC-1701 from Star Trek: Discovery.