Hot Wheels Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A

When I heard Mattel would be producing a series of “die-cast metal” ships from the Star Trek universe under its Hot Wheels brand, I was so excited I couldn’t wait for the release date to arrive. Jettison the warp engines; this model is dead in space, from a truth-in-marketing perpective. It’s more fiction than science.

The model of NCC-1701 Refit is at least two-thirds plastic (the entire saucer section and neck, both warp engine nacelles and pylons, and the front and back of the lower section.

I wouldn’t object so much if Mattel hadn’t so boldly gone where others have gone before and fell short of their efforts, material-wise. The Corgi Enterprise from “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” in 1979 was about three-fourths die-cast metal and the Ertl models from later movies was about two-thirds metal. A full metal ship was certainly very doable. Mattel simply decided that it could make more money with cheaper production costs. We’re talking pennies per unit here, assuming the company wasn’t trying to produce molds that would last for many years.

Worse yet, the packaging ignores the reality of the situation. There’s not even an attempt to be honest, with LARGE PRINT-small print wording such as “DIE-CAST METAL with plastic parts.” What Mattel did was probably legal, but it is dishonest.

Finally, on my model and at least a half dozen others I’ve seen in stores, the plastic saucer section is tilted askew relative to the lower hull, like it is deformed at the neck. This could be the result of packaging the mostly plastic ship in a way that warped the flexible plastic material, or it could be a natural result of the PVC plastic changing shape as the plastic cured. All of this could have been avoided had Mattel actually made the entire ship our of die-cast metal.

Alright, it’s not all bad. In terms of paint and molded details, the ship is the best scale “die-cast” model yet produced. (Ignore the 1:50 description that seems to follow this multi-ship line. Manufacturers are not adhering to any particular scale, based on dimensional information I have on hand.) So if you want something that looks good, it’s passable for $15 or less.

But the only prime directive Mattel seems to care about is profit, so you’ll have to decide if the Ferengi way of doing business is the right way.