 |
|
OOOOOOHHHHH David Hasselhoff!
And his Black Beauty Knight Rider Sidekick! Michael, who are you calling a
Sidekick? You're right KITT' (The Tomaso Collection)
|
The vehicle pictured above may/may not still be on
display. As these pictures were taken during last Summer; August, 2016...
Notes
Wasn't Knight Rider the TV Show that made David
Hasselhof famous? Before he left KITT 2000 in the Malibu parking lot to don swim trunks for his "Day Job" on the
beach...
Ah, here we G-O again REVHEADZ', another trek
down memory lane, especially since I had ZERO clue that a second Knight Rider
television series had come 'N apparently gone some eight years ago! During the
2008-09 fall season.
As surely Y'all know 'bout Der Hoff', nee TV
Hunk David Michael Hasselhoff, Ja Volt! Who although began his Hollywood Star
rise as "Dr. Snappy-Pantz' Foster" on The Young and Restless, came to
national prominence as Crime Fighter Michael Knight in Knight Rider from 1982-86
- before dashing off for Life Guarding duties in Baywatch, which propelled the
stardom of Pamela Anderson; but I digress...
As this story's 'bout the car, affectionately
known simply as KITT', or formally as Knight Rider Industries Two Thousand, based
upon an '82 third generation Pontiac Firebird Trans Am with Artificial
Intelligence enabling KITT to basically drive itself and almost impervious to
destruction.
Yet somehow, when I hear the name Trans Am,
and exclude the once stellar SCCA Pro Racing series, especially the
"Factory Wars" era of the 1990's. Inevitably, I always immediately
think of another famous Trans Am driven by Burt Reynolds in Smokey and The
Bandit, which is another story topic entirely...
Entertainingly, the last I've seen of The
Hoff' was during a past episode of Fast 'N Loud, where they magically tracked
down Hasselhoff in his Dressing Room for a concert in Sweden, or was it
Switzerland, Ja-Ja? As they were trying to meet him for Somme-thun-ruther'
Oh yeah, that's right, they built a Knight
Rider KITT 2000
1982-ish Pontiac Trans Am replica, along with
getting David Hasselhoff to attend a birthday party during a two hour season
finale episode complete with really Cheesy KITT voiceovers, and think they even
got pulled over by ChiP's Hunkster erik Estrada on their way to the party...
As I've also watched the Fast 'N Loud crew
build a 1977-ish Bandit mobile with the comedic affects of tracking down Mr.
Reynolds for his autograph.
As the episode was replete with a Keystone
Coppers' chase scene with past Gas Monkey Garage employee, and now star of
Misfit Garage Tom Smith's entertaining 'N fairly well done Buford T. Justice
impersonation. Although Nobody can out due the late, great Jackie Gleason!
As interestingly, and fairly typical in the
Movie Cars realm, there's now apparently more KITT 2000's on static museum
duty, prowlin' the roads and in private collections than supposedly survived
the TV Show's production of 22/23, for which supposedly only five survived. So
who knows what KITT 2000's are real, eh?
Meanwhile, Y'all
cannot fault the base platform selection for KITT's successor, aka KITT 3000, a
2008 ford Shelby GT-500KR...
(Photo Courtesy of Clarity Pictures)