Excelsior studio model

Angelus Lupus

Thanks for those pictures, looks like she had markings for Excalibur and Yammaguchi on her when she sold. I'd have been tempted to idealise her a little and make the markings consistent... would that have been sacrilege?

phase pistol

Yes.

Angelus Lupus

What even to replace the peeling (paper, I think) stick on lifeboat hatches? Oh well, it's not like I could ever have afforded it, but we can all dream of our own custom starship model, right?

Tremas

Got to admit, I wasn't all that in love with the Excelsior when I first saw it, for some reason.
But, I've grown to love it now.

Thanks for the pics!

justice88

looks awesome

Nwerke

My first thought back in the day was 'that's a duck trying to mate with a frisbee'.

I've grown to love it though. Very pure Deco design. You could use it as a hood ornament for an early 50's Buick.

phase pistol

Excelsior I think was designed originally to be a sort of muscle-bound cartoon version of the Enterprise. It existed only for the gag where it "runs out of steam" due to Scotty's tampering, in ST3.

JMChladek

Well, Karl does come to me from time to time for AMT Enterprise questions. So he doesn't know "everything". But, he does get to hang out with a few more cool props than I do. And yes, I knew the "R" initial as well. Just remember there are Trek fans, and then there are some real detail obsessed people out there. RPF tends to have more of the detail obsessed ones (modelers are like that).

The Excelsior is a very odd design in its original form IMHO. To me, there was really only ever one good filming angle on it and that was the angle of it we saw in Trek III with the secondary hull being showcased. Otherwise, it just looks a bit too long and sleek with a tiny saucer (sort of the NBA basketball player of Starfleet). The additions made to the Enterprise B improve it for the most part as they bulked out the mass in spots. So those bigger impulse engines on the saucer (which Drex refers to as shuttle bays in his side diagram) reminded me a little of a muscle car with a blower coming out of the bay. What they did to the secondary hull also was nice, but it was admittedly a bit weird. Still, I don't know how they could have done it better without making the front of the hull looking too bulged. So I guess its "mustache" is a decent compromise.

BTW, NICE shots of Lakota and the Ambassador class BTW, complete with the "aztek" pattern. I heard there was a repeating pattern on the Excelsior, but never really saw any good confirmation of it on a model until now. Interesting how the Ambassador says "Yamaguchi" in front and "Excalibur" in the back. So I guess there was something to AMT using both names in their kit afterall. Also, does anyone else see the blue bussard collectors on the Lakota? So I guess the JJ Prise WASN'T the first Trek ship to have that.

jameth1971

Not to get a whole thing going but the Excelsior is the best looking Star ship ever. Which is why the Enterprise E is so awesome. It's the next step in the line. For some reason they took an odd turn with the odd shaped, utterly worthless Ambassador and Galaxy class ships.

Let's face it. All they ever did was fail, break, and get destroyed. Not to mention they look like the cousin know one ever talks about but always comes up at a family get together. C and D look like Bobble Heads. "Look out, they are falling over and they can't get up"

Now come on,.. that was funny.

Enterprise A, Excelsior, Enterprise E. Everything else is just odd, big, bulgy, get's it's butt kicked by very old ships, etc.

robn1

Thanks for all the great pics Karl.

KLINGONSNIPER

Thanks everyone for the great pics

phase pistol

Actually the blue bussards were added, I guess, by Eaves for Star Trek Generations. There were no engine lights at all in the original NX-2000 version seen in Trek 3 and Trek 6!

JMChladek

To me, the movie ships really don't go one way or the other until TNG as the Enterprise refit, the Reliant, the Grissom and the Excelsior had no signs of blue bussards. But, when Generations rolled around, they stuck those little detail pieces on the fronts of the engines that sort of looked like bussards (to tie them in with the C and D look) and they were more bluish in color than red.

Personally, I've considered the original Excelsior engines to be the best looking of the movie era ones as they didn't look all art decoed out like a 1930s car like what the Enterprise refit had. They just were there with big black grills and a little gray. When Greg Jein built the new Excelsior studio model for Voyager's "Flashback" and he put the glowing blue bits in, it just made the nacelles look gawdy IMHO (like two giant neon signs).

BlueMirageStudio

Wow, after seeing the closeups, it looks like model making has gone down in quality these days.