AMT’s Enterprise at 55
Glen Swanson has posted a series of articles about the AMT Enterprise in honor of its 55th Anniversary and we are pleased to share them here as well!
By Glen E. Swanson
This year marks the 55th anniversary of when the first AMT model kit of the U.S.S. Enterprise began to appear on store shelves. Star Trek had been on the air for a little less than one season and no one knew if it would be popular among television viewers. The model soon became a hit as AMT sold over a million copies in less than one year.
In recognition of this anniversary, I have compiled a series of short essays about how that first kit came to be and whose purchase and assembly became a sort of right-of-passage (which was often frustrating) for most Star Trek fans who built an 18-inch model of the ship that most could only view from a distance on their fuzzy two-dimensional b&w television sets (many did not have color). These original essays were, in part, inspired by an article that I wrote that was published in Michigan History Magazine. These essays can be found at our website at www.liftoffworks.com.
In recognition of the model’s 55th anniversary, a group of dedicated fans have begun producing a history of AMT’s Star Trek model kits. The end result will be the first of what we hope to be a series of three books chronicling the history of all the Star Trek model kits produced by AMT. As part of our effort, we have gathered photos showing fans and their early Star Trek models that were submitted to us during our research. Most of these pictures were taken shortly after the first AMT kits began appearing in stores during the late 1960s. These photos have a certain charm because they reflect a time when very few products were available to support a fan’s interest in their favorite television shows. To own a model the Enterprise, sagging warp engines and all, meant a lot.
In addition to the photos, contributors provided brief testimonials about their experiences with these early model kits. We assembled both these photos and their testimonials to produce a special anniversary collage poster. It took us a while, but we obtained permissions from the contributors to reprint their photos along with their stories. In addition, Round 2 LLC, the current license holder of AMT, also granted us permission to use the AMT logo, photos of the model and associated artwork for this special tribute.
We thought it only fitting that the poster along with a descriptive key and a digital copy of the Michigan History Magazine article all be bundled together and made available to download to everyone for free beginning September 8, 2022, the 56th anniversary of the premiere of the first episode of Star Trek on NBC television (Canada saw it first on September 6). Simply go to our website beginning September 8 at https://liftoffworks.com/?p=1122 to download the files. The collage file is hires and designed to be printed as a 20×30-inch poster. We have found that most online digital printing services will allow you to easily post this file for them to print. They will then ship the finished print directly to your home all for a reasonable fee. We found Costco’s online digital printing service to be the best value.
Created by fans for fans, we hope that everyone will enjoy this free items as a tribute to the very first Star Trek model kit, the one that started it all!
