Beyond its fidelity to the miniature that was used on the original Star Trek television series, the extra markings included allow the modeler to build the ship as almost any Klingon ship courtesy of 4 sets of Klingon alphabet characters.  Extra parts, decals and the painting instructions also give the modeler option of building the kit as one of two Romulan variants. 

Wanting to make the most of their new miniature, the producers explained in the episode titled “The Enterprise Incident” that the Romulans’ vessels were based on the Klingon design.  This concept was expanded in Star Trek: The Animated Series wherein Klingon spacecraft were shown in Romulan markings, which served as the basis for the Polar Lights decals.

I snapped my sample together in 90 minutes, during which I found the instructions clear and concise.  It seems that no one has been able to engineer a snap kit that wouldn’t benefit from a little glue, and that’s the case here.  The attachment of the boom to the Main Body is rather weak and angles off slightly to one side.  The snap fit of the Wing Assemblies is a little loose, too.

These aren’t big issues, though - the snap fit builder will most likely be too young to care, particularly if an adult is at hand with some cement.  That same adult may also be needed to help with some of the smaller parts (#7 is about the size of a large pinhead)  and the tinier stickers.  The serious modeler who aims for a permanent construction will certainly be able to deal with these issues.

There is one insurmountable problem with the kit: it’s out of scale.  The provenance for this is a little murky, because Star Trek designer Walter M. Jeffries’ shooting miniature didn’t exactly match the schematics that were seen on the show.  However, it is generally agreed that the ship is about 1/2 inch -  nearly 50 scale feet -  too long.  Such an error would infuriate mainstream modelers, so it’s up to hard-core Sci-Fi builders to decide whether they can live with it.  The D7 is still smaller than Polar Lights’ 1/1000 scale U.S.S. Enterprise model, so it’s good enough for me.

Except for the base, I didn’t paint my sample for the purpose of this review.  I used the stickers to mark this ship in standard Klingon livery.  Later on, I’ll remove the stickers and give the kit the full treatment.  The instructions give some pretty dramatic paint schemes for the Klingon and Romulan variants, so it would be easy to build a whole fleet of these little gems!

The kit comes with only one fairly stable base - which was molded in the form of the Klingons’ emblem.  I’d have liked to see an alternative base done with a Romulan symbol also.  That said, I’m sure that some Garage Kit maker will come to the rescue - and there’s no telling what the aftermarket decal people will come up with.