Starship- USS Mustang, Ranger Class Scout
NCC – 7147
Exploring a mossy-green alien planet.
USS Mustang, with forward shuttlebay door closed.
The open shuttlebay up close.
The USS Mustang, a variant of the refitted Ranger class scout with its more common bow shuttlebay configuration.
Starstation Computer Art 
I adore your interiors. They really bring extra life to the ships. And the ships themselves are amazing.
Can’t help but think this is a huge chunk to take out of such a small ship though. I guess her crew got smaller, and/or her mission endurance decreased.
Check and check! Small crews are a given. Maximum mission endurance would be comparable to the Strider variation, and as expected, typically shorter (by far) than larger Starfleet vessels.
However, as far as chunky internal ship volumes go, the Mustang bay not only takes (roughly) the equivalent space from both aft bays seen on the Strider and joins them together, but it also has the added benefit of that minor forward extension, which adds some extra deck space well beyond the rounded portion of the ship’s bow. Though I haven’t remodeled its aft section yet, the Mustang will have its own distinctions back there as well, most notably, the absence of both aft bays seen on the Strider (though, one or both sides may still sport docking ring airlocks).
Admittedly, I don’t know the exact cubic dimensions off hand for a comparison of the two variations’ bays, and this single forward bay might actually extend a bit deep into the primary hull, giving it an even further edge in size over the Strider double bays. But whatever minimal losses might result at the bow of the Mustang due to one congruous bay, most interior spaces will be properly redistributed throughout the ship to absorb any loss, especially throughout the entire aft portion of the extended hull, where multiple bays (and their extensive recessive bulkhead-mechanics) won’t be found.
This variation of the class was an attempt to accommodate something slightly more akin to its original FASA depiction with that more boxy front end interrupting its primarily round hull. It was also my own means to garner two unquestionably distinct starships, all for the price of one plus some modeling pocket change. Fictionally, I like to think that the Strider was the first attempt at a major overhaul, primarily set in motion due to the extensive damages she suffered, as depicted in the FASA RPG supplement that introduced her, The Strider Incident. Her upgrades were far more extensive and allowed her to serve as a testbed for several experimental technologies. This also helps to explain her particularly divergent appearance. It seems reasonable to me that some fleet yard-masters (though not necessarily all) may have chosen to go with something less invasive for the later refits scheduled to follow, thus maintaining those forward boxy protrusions (whether that was ever a landing bay in the original RPG I could care less).
What scale kit or kits would you use to build this?
I’m not entirely sure I understand the question. Seems like a fairly arbitrary decision to me, as if one would build it to however large a scale model they desire to see on display.
I haven’t built scale models in decades, and don’t even have the exact dimensions for this ship on hand right now, but I’m fairly certain it would be quite small if you built it to the same scale as those old AMT/Ertl Enterprise models originally put out after TMP (which I’m told is 1/535 scale). The 1/350 scale Enterprise produced by Polar Lights a few years back would certainly provide a larger and more detailed model, though still diminutive by comparison.