10 Times Star Trek Reused Ships And Hoped You Wouldn’t Notice
5. Klingon D7 Battlecruiser/Romulan Battlecruiser
The ship that would come to be known as the D-7 Class battlecruiser, designed by Matt Jefferies, had a very unusual start in life. It was designed at the urging of AMT models so that they might have a companion model to market alongside their model kit of the USS Enterprise. As such, it was the reverse of most processes - the toy came first before the ship would fly.
Jefferies recalled that he worked on the design at home as there was neither time nor budget to do so at the studio. After numerous attempts, he based the shape on a Manta ray, and the ship was almost done.
The first shots of the model were done for the episode Elaan Of Troyous, firmly establishing it as a Klingon vessel. However, the model, which had delighted producers for The Original Series' third season, was quickly inserted wherever possible - including as a Romulan vessel in The Enterprise Incident. A scheduling mix-up meant that this new Klingon ship, designed around the Klingon people, to be marketed as a Klingon battlecruiser - was shown first as a Romulan ship.
The remastered versions of The Original Series fix this by introducing the ship a little earlier and giving those seen in The Enterprise Incident a more distinctly Romulan pattern underneath, but this was a model that had one of the strangest journeys to screen in the entire franchise.