Comments on: Kitt Car now up for auction on eBay – own a piece of TV history

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 08:25:00 +0000

Go figure George Barris would take a cool design and screw it up. The original front/rear ends of Kitt did NOT look like this

By: joey

joey — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:40:47 +0000

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!!!

By: Lambros Vassiliou

Lambros Vassiliou — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 08:39:42 +0000

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.

By: Wayne Schulz

Wayne Schulz — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:55:39 +0000

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.

By: mchinsky

mchinsky — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:49:02 +0000

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.

By: Allen Hong

Allen Hong — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:37:25 +0000

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.

By: Christopher Spera

Christopher Spera — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:32:39 +0000

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?

By: mchinsky

mchinsky — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:05:05 +0000

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)