knight rider online

I had a pleasant surprise today... Kustom Kar King George Barris had an open house to celebrate the opening of his new gift store and the strange KITT that appeared on Nick & Jessica was on display, right next to a General Lee. Other cars were the original Batmobile, the Monkeemobile, a Back To The Future DeLorean and a bunch of other custom cars. There was a band playing, free food and drinks, and I was surprised how much freedom people had to wander through his shop, considering how much valuable Hollywood history is lying around.

I'll set up some other page with more photos of KITT.

That is one strange looking KITT. What is with the bumper?

He looks like he's about to sneeze.

Its probably SPM KITT from what I can see. I can see the scoops and Intake Vents on the side. But, WTF is wrong with the Nose?

A finder binder maybe?

FuzzieDice wrote:He looks like he's about to sneeze.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA

I think some here might be a little too young to remember the old "Speed Buggy" cartoon (about a talking racing buggy car). That's kinda where I got the idea from.

I have some more photos of the car here:

http://www.knightridermovie.com/misc/ba ... rris1.html

Based on the closeup pics, that thing on KITT's nose is some sort of rear spoiler. It definitely does not belong there, why would they do that? Probably somebody's idea of a sick joke? And the interior of the car is also a joke! No wonder they didn't bother putting barricades around the car, it just wasn't worth protecting in my opinion

You have to keep in mind that chances are this car was never meant to be seen up close. It was probably just built to sit on a stage and be filmed from the front. There was no reason to spend a lot of time (and money) building out the interior or rear of the car. If we some some of the original cars from the series we'd say the same thing about them- they look like a joke in person. But through the magic eyes of the camera, they look fantastic.

But the spoiler up front is a mystery to me.

I don't know if I agree there so much... Why waste all that time on the car and even do the back if it was just to be filmed from the front? From all previous reports of the SPM car, there wasn't ever a mention of multiple, and many understand that there was only one. You can see that even the front bumper doesn't split, but yet you can see the retracted front fins. Half extended, half not?

My thought is maybe the mechanism was breaking down and they made it permanently extended. And whoever did it, didn't care enough for screen accuracy. It was 20 years since SPM, and I'm guessing the car was neglected, before it was restored. They very well could have fused the panels in the extended position and repainted the car.

Thanks for the Photos Mike, it's really great that you were able to check it out. It's just really sad to see a car like this paraded around from such a well known source. Has old man Barris lost his mind? It's really a head scratcher.

The Nick & Jessica show probably thought that only the general public would tune in, so therefore, they wouldn't need to build a direct replica of KITT since nobody would think hardcore fans of KR would be there to see it so they built a more "general" version.

It looks ok for a rough version but the front spoiler is unforgivable.

Skav

FuzzieDice wrote:I think some here might be a little too young to remember the old "Speed Buggy" cartoon (about a talking racing buggy car). That's kinda where I got the idea from.

Are you talking about the Car that drinks Oil and hangs out with a bunch of Teenagers. And one of them is a Mechanic. If so, they appeared in a episode of Scooby Doo.

By the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY And for your Birthday Kitt will SPM for you

General Lee sits there un touched and poor KITT is suffering from bad and just plane cruel handling. I think the General Lee made the joke of putting the spoiler on there.wat do u think?

That is OBSCENE!!! Poor Kitt just didn't deserve that! Now Karr o the other hand..... It is almost a Not-So-Super Pursuit Mode!!

Aren't those Turbo finned Rims on that car? And it has a JC Scanner. And all it has is the dash with some slapped on parts.

I'm convinced this is not an original car from the series, but a recent replica. It's possible it was created specifically for the Nick & Jessica show. I have a friend doing some work for Barris and am trying to get him to get the whole story. If it was a quick custom job for a TV special, that would explain why I don't think they were worried about filming the interior or the rear.

you can even see a box on top of the dash in the (dash pic) which, I presume, is to light the scanner.

Skav

Skav wrote:you can even see a box on top of the dash in the (dash pic) which, I presume, is to light the scanner.

Skav

Yes it is. Thats the controller for the scanner. Its a Jc Whitney brand scanner. I own one.

TurbomanKnight wrote: Are you talking about the Car that drinks Oil and hangs out with a bunch of Teenagers. And one of them is a Mechanic. If so, they appeared in a episode of Scooby Doo.

Yup, that's Speed Buggy. I have a Scooby Doo air freshener in my car BTW. Speed Buggy's mechanic's name is "Tinker" and he looked a lot like Shaggy from Scooby Doo if you notice.

TurbomanKnight wrote: By the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY And for your Birthday Kitt will SPM for you

Thank you! I spent some of my time getting the glue gunk off Kitt after I had removed his pin striping the other day. My arms are sore today. But I did manage to get some cake and ice cream for a late lunch. I'm bad, I know.

I don't recall seeing the spoiler on the nose or the SPM fins on the KITT used in the Nick & Jessica Variety Hour. I'll have to go back and watch it. Does anyone have a screen shot of the variety show KITT?

Joe

I don't think the Nick & Jessica T/A had a spoiler on the nose. That George Barris car is THE most rediculous riced-up version of KITT I've ever seen. I think he did a disservice to the show and to KITT by showing that car like that.

I mean if you're going to show off a car to the general public, the least you could do is strive for accuracy. There's enough folks around that have seen Knight Rider in their lifetimes to know that car just doesn't cut it.

Someone give that car a tissue. Please.

Here's a grab from the Nick & Jessica variety hour. As you can see, I don't think they even put a custom nose on it. Looks like the standard stock T/A nose with a lightbar installed.

NOTE That this picture may not show up after awhile, as I routinely clean my hotlink files to save bandwidth. But just for the sake of this thread I've posted it temporarily.

I take back what I said...it does look like the car in the Nick & Jessica show did have the SPM fins, but didn't have the spoiler on the front bumper.

Joe

The Nick & Jessica did have the front spoiler after all. Look at the photo on the right, in the headlights: you can see the horizontal bar of the spoiler. This is another example of the miracle of television: Something as glaringly ugly in real life as the front spoiler is almost completely unnoticed on TV.