FAST FACTS Vol. 1, Issue 11 – Knight Rider’s K.I.T.T.

The coolest car on the 1980s TV block, with thousands of replicas still on the road.

Knight Rider’s K.I.T.T. – The super-pursuit Trans Am for every red-blooded American

Knight Rider burst onto television screens, and streets, in 1982, running for four seasons, with 90 episodes. The star of the show was an intelligent, talking Pontiac Trans Am named K.I.T.T., which stood for Knight Industries Two Thousand. There was also a sidekick, maybe a lifeguard-ish fella, David Hasselhoff, who played Michael Knight, a former detective, now fighting crime with a supercar, sporting the distinctive voice of actor William David Daniels, aka Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World.

K.I.T.T. oozed with 80s coolness, brandishing a 300 mph top speed, and over a hundred supped features like Super Pursuit Mode, Silent Mode, missiles, flame throwers, oil-slick, electronic signal jamming, a lie-detector, a laser cannon, and a laser printer, because, you know, dot-matrix printers were so uncool. The car was conceived by brilliant, but eccentric billionaire Wilton Knight founder of Knight Industries.

K.I.T.T. had a ‘self-aware’ cybernetic processor programmed to protect the driver and all human life, at all costs. K.I.T.T.’s exterior was protected by “Tri-Helical Plasteel 1000” a molecular bonded shell plating. The fictitious vehicle was powered by a turbojet engine with modified afterburners, with an eight-speed microprocessor-controlled transmission. It could go from 0-60 mph in 0.2 seconds and cost a mind-blowing $11.4 million dollars to construct.

The 1982 Pontiac Trans Am was in short supply when show production began, so master-craftsman Michael Scheffe created the signature K.I.T.T. look, and designed only one car, which was then used as a pattern for three more vehicles when they became available.

Based on an F-body Pontiac Trans Am, K.I.T.T. was a front-engine 5-liter V-8, which pushed 145 horsepower to its rear wheels. The first-season car had minimal body modifications the first two seasons, as the red chasing lights on the nose provided ample ‘eye candy’. The approximate $18,000 put into modifying cars, was dedicated to the different types of vehicles, the ‘hero’ car, that Hasselhoff posed in or next to; the lightweight, mostly fiberglass stunt car(s), and the rear-seat, hidden driver car, for scenes where K.I.T.T. drove itself. But season three gave K.I.T.T. a big makeover, with wings, spoilers, a hood scoop, and other tweaks to combat the thousands of super-fan K.I.T.T. replicas flooding the roads.

The production department worked tirelessly with just those four cars until the spring of 1983, when a train carrying dozens of Trans Am’s derailed, classifying the vehicles as ‘unsaleable’. GM sold 10 cars to Knight Rider as ‘damaged goods’ for $1 each, with the stipulation that once the show concluded, they were to be destroyed… which they were, with a wrecking ball. (Sacrilege!)

Homage should be paid to the show’s creator, Glen Larson, who died at age 77. His visionary musings put sci-fi wonders into K.I.T.T. that can be found on most modern-day vehicles as actual features. K.I.T.T. could easily handle self-driving and collision avoidance, utilizing K.I.T.T.’s signature red chasing lights, referred to as the “Anamorphic Equalizer” which was described as a set of electronic eyes that scanned ahead in all visual and X-ray spectrums.

If Michael was in danger he could summon K.I.T.T. with a homing beacon hidden in his pendant. Kind of like how “find my iPhone” works today.  And if he was hurt, K.I.T.T. could scan his vital signs, much like FORD’s new ECG heart-rate monitoring seats. If a driver issue is detected, other vehicle systems could be activated, like safely stopping and automatically calling for assistance.

Finally, K.I.T.T. was powered by a hydrogen-gasoline turbo engine, and while uglier than a copy-machine, so is today’s Toyota Prius hybrid.

COOL FRASER FAST FACTS INCLUDE:

1. Knight Rider was a tribute remake of the Lone Ranger… only Silver the horse is replaced with a talking car.
2. K.I.T.T., which stands for Knight Industries Two Thousand, was originally named T.A.T.T. for Trans Am Two Thousand because the design was based on the Pontiac Trans Am.
3. The chasing red lights on K.I.T.T.’s front end were taken directly from the Cylons’ ‘eye’ on the sci-fi show Battlestar Galactica.
4. K.I.T.T. accompanied David Hasselhoff when he performed onstage, singing one of his songs at Disneyland back in 1985.
5. In season three, the show’s producers wrote an episode where K.I.T.T. gets destroyed and rebuilt. This major makeover effort was to update the car, as replicas and even production versions had nicer digital dashboard features, and some even had vocal notifications, like “Your oil level is low.)
6. David Hasselhoff drives the only right-hand drive K.I.T.T. replica built in his music video “Jump in My Car” because the video was shot in Sydney, Australia and the car came from Victoria, Australia.
7. On April 4th, 2007, one of the four K.I.T.T. cars used in the production of the television series was put up for sale for $149,995 by Johnny Verhoek of Kassabian Motors, Dublin, CA.

NOTE: We are not even going to mention the 2008 Knight Rider reboot. (Shame on you NBC.) But you can read, and even watch, it’s a one-season fizzle if you like.

If you want to trick out a vintage Trans Am of your own, bolt in a world-class FRASER remanufactured engine and get out there!

Thinking about building a replica with an American-made engine? Fraser has the right engine ready for you!