unidearth, all I can say is that is awesome and fascinating work. I look forward to seeing more. For myself I see this E as being more along the lines MJ intended initially when he drew it up: an early exploratory starship active sometime between the very late 21st century through to the mid 22nd century. And no I don't buy into the idea that it is Vulcan derived.
Real world speculation: I don't think this design had anything to do with Star Trek, other than being a Roddenberry project about a starship. As the article mentioned, it bears no resemblence to the design samples shown in "The Making of Star Trek". Also, the art style is somewhat different in the sketches than we see in the early Enterprise designs. More refined, polished. Like, oh, say, the same artist ten years later. As for the ultimate realization of that design concept, other than the Vulcan ships, I'd like to offer up none other than the final incarnation of the "Starship" series concept, after being mated to the scraps of "Genesis II/Planet Earth"....."Andromeda". Just beef up the center section, squash the ring, and stretch the port and starboard edges forward, and you're a long ways down the road to the Andromeda Ascendant.
Herb Solow's "Star Trek Sketchbook" does seem to present the XCV-330 design, and some "squash-ring" versions similar to what you describe, as being part of the 1701's design process. Of course, since I think it's taken for granted that some of the sketches presented in that book as part of the 1701 design process were part of the Phase II refit design process and present erroneously, that the ringship ones might have been too.
It's possible that Jefferies might have forgotten what those sketches were for, considering the amount of time that had passed, and that the project itself didn't really go anywhere. Or, alternately, we don't know what sort of filing system he had for his sketches; they might've all been in the same file that he handed to Solow and wasn't present to correct any misconceptions.
To those of you who commented.... You're welcome, and glad you enjoyed them. And yes, they are very very rare indeed. Have a good one.
I've tried remodeling this ship a few times and hopefully now I will actually finish it. I matched the camera as closely as I can to the rec-deck image. Then I extracted what details I could and came up with a basic model. I rendered this with a more shiny texture to try and match the lighting patterns on the original image. The bullet looking thing is the enviropod.
Here's my progress on the Enviropod. My concept is that the Enviropod is a radiation shielded emergency area, it also functions as a lifeboat, and long range shuttle craft.
They could both have been using basically the same design. If one ring was a "habitat ring," and the second ring housed the warp engine there would be plenty of room for passagers, dining room, gyms, etc.. Plus cargo too. Both the passager and engine ring could rotate separate from the central body, saving power on artificial gravity. With a ship 300 metres long the rings would have a circumference of over 2100 feet. I can also see the long neck mounting cargo pods like those on the Botany Bay (assuming that what they were).