Almost everyone remembers the TV series Knight Rider with David Hasselhoff. But the real star was the Pontiac Firebird, which was called K.I.T.T (Knight Industries Two Thousand) in the series and showed intelligence and special status with its wandering LED lights on the hood.
Thanks to "Turbo Boost", the car could fly and scan the area, but above all it could talk and think, because K.I.T.T. was a mobile computer. And Hasselhoff, alias Michael Knight, used it to take down evil villains. That was in 1982 (and lasted until 1986, not counting the subsequent series and films). K.I.T.T. was a self-driving car, against which today's attempts still seem like kindergarten, but after all, it was just a TV series.
There were probably countless replicas of K.I.T.T. built, some with very simple means, others with far-reaching functions. One example of this is the Pontiac Firebird 2.8 V6 "KITT Replica" from 1984, which is currently being auctioned on catawiki. It is modeled after the version of K.I.T.T. used in the second year of the TV series and is described on catawiki as follows:
"This car, faithfully reproduced in detail in all its parts, is not only identical to the "Knight Rider" used in the TV series down to the smallest detail, but is also able to have a dialog with the driver thanks to the "robo-domotic" computer system with voice recognition. The car can speak, answer questions and carry out a series of physical tasks such as opening and closing windows and turning the lights and engine on and off.
The main parts used to transform the car into a replica of the series came from a specialized world-renowned company with Rob Louiselle as director, while all the electronic parts were made in Italy."
According to the description, the car is original with the exception of the conversion parts, has 150,000 km on the clock and dates back to 1984. The conversion was carried out in 1984. The only downside: the car only "speaks" and "understands" Italian.
Further information can be found on the catawiki website, where you can of course also bid. At the current time (February 12, 2016), the highest bid is EUR 34,000 and the auction will only run until February 15, 2016.
