Labor Day Weekend...Labor

I have spent most of yesterday and today getting the body of the car sanded. Still have a ways to go but you can see it's coming along. I also removed the heavily cracked front windshield. It took me about an hour to get it off!







With the fenders inspected and repaired where necessary, I re-installed them and the front nose:









Almost ready for primer!

More Disassembly...

I made a slightly unpleasant discovery when I removed the driver's side fender on Tuesday...turns out that it's a replacement fender. My first clue were the patches of fiberglass on the back...they hid extra mounting holes that usually come with reproduction fenders. Also, there was no factory date stamp:







However, the biggest clue that this wasn't a factory fender:



That's right! Made in Taiwan. Notice the amount of rust on the inside of the fender. It's only surface rust so it can be easily fixed...however, before this fender goes back on, I am going to coat every square inch of it to help prevent future rust. Or, I may try and find a replacement original GM fender.

Moving on from that, you can see that progress has been made on the sanding front, still a long way to go. Also, here's a shot of the dead engine that's getting ready to be pulled:






More to come!

Disassembly...

A few week's back, I began disassembling the car, starting with the front stone deflectors:



Most people don't realize this, but the screen used K.I.T.T. cars DID NOT have these deflectors with the exception of ONE car...the original Pilot Presentation car...you know, the one with the odd front nose? This one:



...So I sold them on Ebay. More disassembly:






As you can see above, there's some minor surface rust - nothing major though! A quick sanding and priming of those spots and we're good to go.

And, finally, test fitting the front nose for the first time. I was even able to copy the infamous season 2/3 "droopy" turn signal indentations:







More to come soon!

Almost KITT vs Future KITT

I decided to have a little fun with my two Trans Ams...the fully restored 1984 T/A is the one I have had since 1998...at one point during those ten years, it was going to be my replica, and I even got so far as to convert the outside:

...but I ultimately decided that I wanted to keep this one stock and buy another to convert.

July 17, 2008 - The Day I Brought KITT Home

I found this car on Craigslist. A 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, 58,825 original miles on a blown LU5 Crossfire FI 305 that had been sitting since February 1997! The car originally came fully loaded (minus power seats and power mirrors). Black exterior, tan interior. Unfortunately, a previous owner had swapped out 90% of the original tan interior for a gray set, and pulled the PMD seats and replaced them with gray Camaro seats. Luckily, I have an extra set of PMDs and a tan interior. The body is 100% original with only one small rust hole near the passenger area t-top. The original wheels (15 inch turbo casts) were long gone, but I have a set of those as well. My buddy and I drove about two hours from where I live and we towed it home. Even with its faded paint job and mismatched wheels, we still had people eyeing it over when we drove by. Incidentally, the car was purchased on July 17th, 2008 - David Hasselhoff's 56th birthday...call that a good omen.

Creating a K.I.T.T. Replica

Well, here it is. The beginning of my blog which will cover the construction of the Knight Industries Two Thousand, the high-tech talking car from NBC's Knight Rider. My goal - to build the most series accurate version of the season three K.I.T.T. hero car. I've gone so far as to locate original tan PMD seat material, obtain measurements of the seldom replicated tow bar and take measurements and tracings of an original season three front nose. By the time I am done, you will be hard pressed to find a more accurate season 3 hero car replica!