The Pirate Ship

So here it is. The final model of the Pirate Ship design was long and fairly thin. It had a conical (technically a truncated cone, or in mathematical parlance a conical frustum) cockpit in the front, and an improbably bulky cluster of engines in the back – a glorified space hotrod, basically.

A large and superdetailed model, several feet long, was constructed by George Lucas' special effects company, then located in Van Nuys, California. The images below are the existing photos that I’ve been able to find of the Pirate Ship model during its brief existence.

However, in 1976, shortly before construction of the live-action set was scheduled to begin in England, the Star Wars production team discovered the Eagle Transporter – a spaceship from the British space fantasy TV show Space: 1999. And this vehicle was long and linear, with a cockpit at one end and a mass of engines at the other!

There's a shot at the very bottom of this collection which shows a small Eagle Transporter sitting on a table below the Pirate Ship. Judging by the year, this must have been the diecast metal Transporter toy released in 1975 by Britain's Meccano/Dinky Toys. (the Airfix plastic model kit didn't come out until later) Someone in England must have sent the toy to California for Lucas and team to review.

The discovery of the Eagle spelled the end of the Pirate Ship design as Han Solo’s craft.