Kitt Car now up for auction on eBay – own a piece of TV history
Posted on 13 June 2008, at 12:30 pm, by Wayne Schulz
One of the KITT cars from the popular mid-80’s TV Show “Knight Rider” is up for auction until June 17 on eBay Motors. According to The Hartford Courant, the executor of slain Greenwich businessman Andrew Kissel has placed the vehicle up for auction. The starting bid is only $26,000 which seems like such a small price to pay for a slice of American TV history. Recently this car was also featured in the movie “The Benchwarmers” with Adam Sandler. This is not the first time the car has been up for auction. According to The Courant, the car went up for auction months ago but came down due to authenticity questions. The executor of the estate did some additional research and determined the car is one of the handful of KITT cards used in the 1980s series “Knight Rider”. More information and a link to the eBay Motors listing follows.
From the auction listing:
If you were a Knight Rider / “KITT” fan back in the early to mid 80’s you will recogonize this car! The Knight Rider TV series ran from September 1982 until August 1986. David Hasselhoff played Michael Knight opposite the real star, KITT. KITT was a 300mph, high tech, self aware communicative, man-made marvel, designed to aid and protect Michael Knight. Together with his human co-star, KITT fought for justice across America. This is one of the original vehicles from the series introduced initially in the third season and then re-converted to simulate the “Super Pursuit Mode” variant of KITT that debuted in the 4th season and was later used in the Knight Rider made for television movie (1984) and for exhibition and promotional purposes. One of KITT’s many technologies. the “Super Pursuit Mode” was designed according to the show to give KITT a 40% increase in speed through the assistance of retractable airfoils and jet boosters. Inside, a panel of lights and screens depicted a look at the future of automobile technology – a future that exists in some ways today! This vehicle was most recently featured in the 2006 feature motion picture “The Benchwarmers” wit Adam Sandler.
Link: eBay Motors – KITT Car Auction via: Hartford Courant
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June 13th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Odd,
The auction doesn’t state whether:
A) Does it actually drive?
B) Is it street legal?
C) Can you steer with that wheel?
D) Are there working tail lights (hence street legal question)
E) Most importantly, the Battlestar Galactica inspired moving lights under the hood, do they work? (Glen Larson, the producer of Knight Rider, also produced Battlestar Galctica and got the idea from the Cylons)
June 13th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I’d also like to know if all the gadgets and electronics work to some extent. for example, the CRT’s…do they work, or is just for show?
June 13th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Initially, I thought that this car can’t be one of the cars used in the TV show. On the outside it looks like a badly made fan replica of the season 4 super pursuit mode KITT. While close in super pursuit parts… they are not exact to what appeared on screen. I can’t believe that George Barris Productions butchered the car to be used in the movie, The Benchwarmers.
The photos show a season 1& 2 dash with two TV screens. The season 4 dash has one TV screen and modified dash from the 3rd season, upgraded from the LEDs of seasons 1 and 2. Missing in the photos is the switch pods that controlled all the gadgets. The armrest console button panel is missing too. The inserts for the left side of the dash look to be missing as well. And the four buttons under the TV screens are not the original red switches as seen in the TV show.
Most of the on screen cars also had the fuel filler cap door shaved off… they fitted these on screen KITTs with race car gas tanks that had the filler cap in the trunk accessed by the rear hatchback. This car still has its original fuel filler door. It maybe one of the cars they used for shots where you could not notice such details.
I wouldn’t buy it and in my opinion no self respecting fan would either, unless the fan has the desire, money, and resources to restore the car to its correct appearance.
A better KITT car to buy would have been the original KITT I saw a few years ago. That car was an original from Universal Studios and had all the mods done to it for stunt work on the show and had the cable pulls to make it seem like the computer was opening the doors and trunk. The car under went a major restoration and update to have modern day electronics installed, yes the car ended up with working gauges. I envy whoever ended up with that one.
@mchinsky and Chris:
The car is not street legal.
There is no turn signal lights on the front. It is unclear what those red plastic things are on the back, brakes, turn signal?
In many areas, the knight rider gullwing steering wheel is not allowed for use. Thats why many fan replicas being driven have a normal steering wheel. They switch it out when they display their replica at shows. BTW, yes you can steer with the gullwing steering wheel. They did it for the TV show.
To answer if the cylon eye scanner and dash will light up? I’m sure that they will, when you take that extension cord that I spotted behind the passenger seat in one of the ebay photos and plug it into the wall. Thats how they lit up the dash on set when they filmed the series.
I also doubt that the dash has real working gauges… making it totally not street legal. Chances are that most of the display read outs are just colored paper or plastic with simple lights behind them.
June 14th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Allen, awesome answer! If this was Yahoo Answers you’d be getting the points!
I do think if this isn’t a joke, the ebay ad really should be discussing the streat legalness and functionalness of the car.
June 14th, 2008 at 7:55 am
There are multiple “KITT” cars floating around — so I’m not sure if this applies to this particular car. But I heard that at least one of these was up for auction and pulled due to concerns about authenticity.
I guess smart people like you guys who watched the show aren’t easily fooled.
My guess is this runs so-so and it a show car. I can’t see how they’d sell it for street legal.
January 10th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Well Many have a "good" guess, here is the TRUE story.
The car was originally used on the show as a second and third season (drive by not close up) that is why there is no switch pod, the Hoff is TALL and later was going to be jumped and junked as it got worn out. When the SPM cars came out, they wanted to have another SPM cruiser available as only ONE car had moving parts and didn't drive and the other three had fixed parts and the car was sent back to Barris for conversion when the show and the order for the car was cancelled.
The studio told Barris A: We pay you for the car and it gets CRUSHED or B: just keep it.
George decided to keep it and Dick Dean did the work and did a "rush-job" as it was only going to be another car in George's collection.
I am located in the North east and the car is available for LEGITIMATE fund raisers at no charge.
*This at my discretion.
I can be contacted at Ultrasubs@Gmail.com.
Thanks.
February 12th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
haha it wasnt even adam sandler in the movie "Benchwarmers" it was Rob Schnider! wow so that shows how much they know about that car!!!