Built by George Barris, the “King of the Kustomizers” in person, a black 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am once used as a promotional vehicle for the Knight Rider TV series is up for sale in California, carrying a current price of $150,000 at the time of this writing.
Offered by Specialty Car Collection, located on the famous Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California, this pristine Pontiac Firebird is signed by David Hasselhoff, who played Michael Knight in the 90 episodes of the Knight Rider series that aired from 1982 through 1986.
Still clean and gleaming in its glossy black exterior paint, the “Real KITT from Knight Rider” Pontiac Firebird is customized to look like KITT, the fictional artificial-intelligence car featured in the original series. George Barris’ seamless custom work is visible right away with the red LED light bar up front that provided an instantaneous visual cue for KITT.
Inside the cockpit, the driver gets as close to the full Michael Knight experience as possible with a special LED dash that looks like the space age control console featured in the TV series car. Other LED lights in the Firebird’s interior match up to those seen in the KITT car, while a yoke steering wheel has been installed in place of the standard component to match up to Knight Rider’s controls.
Other custom flourishes the eventual new owner of the KITT Pontiac Firebird will enjoy are glass roof panels for a brighter, more spacious feel to the interior. These panels are removable for fresh air during summer driving or cruising the sunny streets of California at any time of year. There is a full set of interior light controls and even an intercom system. The seating is upholstered in the same tan cloth as the TV original.
Under the hood, this eye-catching Pontiac cradles a 5.0L V8 gasoline engine. Though nowhere near as powerful as today’s V8s, this powerplant develops 145 horsepower and 240 pound-feet of torque, enough for a decent amount of acceleration. The drivetrain is RWD and cog swaps are handled by a GM four-speed automatic transmission.
As a special bonus, the signatures of David Hasselhoff and George Barris appear on the door latch panel and the door jamb/B-pillar respectively. Check out the images of this exciting piece of film and TV history for a better idea of what’s on offer, and let us know if you think it’s worth $150 grand to own a genuine piece of Knight Rider automobiliana signed by “The Hoff” himself.
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Comments
Loved that series as child …
I remember seeing so many of these cars (in various stages of un-smashed-ness) on the lot when going through the Universal Studios tour in the 80’s. Seems like they had to use at least 3 to 5 for every shot before they jumped or smashed another one.
Interesting: no shoulder belts.
I think $50,000 would be a stretch.
Stupid .
$150K seems undervalued. This is an authentic, George Barris built car and not a homebuilt replica. Back in 2021, a KITT owned by Hasselhoff received real bids up to $500K (ignoring the fraudulent “winning” bid of $975K.) There are only 5 surviving screen-used KITTs still in existence. This Barris built car is as close as you can get to a screen used car, and should easily bring $150K. If I had unlimited disposable income, I would love to have this, a General Lee, a Starsky & Hutch Gran Torino, and an A-Team GMC Vandura van just for the nostalgic fun.
The actual TV cars are not shiny like this one, the ones I’ve seen are matte black so they don’t reflect the light the wrong way when filming.
This is a promo car for car shows and shopping mall appearances….
So when this one is driving down the road, it isn’t always in fast-forward?
Interestingly, as a GM Van Nuys Assembly Plant, Ca. employee assigned the job of doing a DVT (Dynamic Vehicle Test) drives on these “F” Car vehicles, it was interesting in some ways and not so interesting in other ways “back in the day”. The handling and ride dynamics were quite diferent than the previous generation of Pontiac Firebirds, so in 1982 this was quite the “looker” and oh so different using a full on unibody and a modified front strut suspension system. While we’d test drive and evaluate these “new for ’82” F car’s (Chevy Camaro’s too) it was very obvious that these new F cars were going to be down on power by a bunch compared to the previous generation of Trans Am’s and Z-28’s but…their more precise handling and quicker steering were a big plus for those new F car buyers. As far as building the black T/A’s and sending them off to Universal Studios with a first stop a George Barris’s shop, both of these places just a few miles from the Van Nuys Plant, it was pretty cool building and test driving them before the studios got a hold of these T/A’s and beat the crap out of them in an attempt to make it do things that it wasn’t designed to do, like jumping it and doing “high speed action shots” (hey, the base 305 V8 engine just wasn’t up the task, sad but true) however, it didn’t take a Rocket Scientist to figure out how ro get more power out of these vehicles…may not have been “road worthy legal” back in the day, but it was just for the studios filming anyway, so what if the Cat Converter was removed and a true dual exhaust were added or the smog equipment was removed, who knows, it would not have been hard to remove the base 305 engine and put a modified 350 engine in the engine bay or change the rear end gearing from 3.23’s to 3.90’s allowing much quicker pickup camera shots. Anyway you get the idea, but all in all…a great time was had by us assigned “Factory Folks” watching these cars being built, knowing that they’d go to George Barris for those modifications and then on to Universal Studios for more modifications and then, actually watching this very popular TV program bring to life the very product that just a few weeks earlier, I (we) had built and driven and after evaluating each vehicle, putting our “stamp of approval” on each one and sending it off for it’s “final screen test”. One more thing, were these production cars “perfect”…uh, no of course not, but they were as good as we could make ’em “back in the day”. Today this particular car being shown here may or may not be worth the asking price, but one thing is for sure…it’ll be purchased and used for “showing off” or very limited street usage, cause whom ever pays that kind of money for this kind of vehicle knows better than to attempt to do a giant burnout,or do any drifting or canyon runs with it, you’d just be beating a dear horse. Better to just kick back and enjoy your new treasure. Have fun!
Why no BJ?
Still the coolest car not just in the history of television, but in world history, next to the ferraris and the whole stylish miami vice.
Okay now just because the car has a signature of the Hoff gives you the right to sell it at a higher price?