The Return of KITT
Joe Huth's car has taken him to Jay Leno's garage in Burbank, Calif., and to the set of “Good Morning America” in New York's Times Square.
That's not bad for a vehicle Huth barely drives and never takes out on the road.
That's because the Clay Township resident, a big fan of the old TV series, “Knight Rider,” owns one of the only five remaining modified Pontiac Trans Ams used in the series.
“Knight Rider” aired on NBC from 1982 to 1986. The show's star, David Hasselhoff, played Michael Knight, whose crime-fighting career was assisted by KITT, an artificially intelligent and nearly indestructible car.
Huth, 39, who's also co-authored a book about the series called “Knight Rider Legacy: The Unofficial Guide to the Knight Rider,” said about 20 Trans Ams were used on the series.
“They had the 'hero car' for close-ups,” Huth said. “They had a full-time convertible and a bunch of stunt cars.”
Huth's KITT was a stunt car.
“I actually saved it from a salvage yard in Los Angeles,” he said.
“It was the last car the studio had, up until 2008 when they decided they didn't want this car and sent it to a salvage yard,” Huth said.
“A buddy and I purchased it from the salvage yard within days of its arrival.”
The car was in very poor condition. It had sat for years behind a maintenance building. Other vehicles had backed into it, and pieces of the car had been stolen.
“I had it fully restored within nine months,” Huth said. “I didn't strip the paint and put a fresh coat on. I try to preserve history.
“If you were to look at the car, you can see where it got dented or scratched. It's got 15 layers of paint on it,” he said.
Following its restoration, KITT has rarely been driven. It travels to events in an enclosed trailer.
One exception to the rule came in April 2018, when Huth's car was featured on CNBC's “Jay Leno's Garage.”
The comedian and former “Tonight Show” host is a serious car collector. His “Big Dog Garage” in Burbank, Calif., houses his extensive collection of cars and motorcycles.
“I have a mutual friend who is friends with a producer with 'Jay Leno's Garage,'” Huth said.
“They contacted me in December, and it filmed in February 2018,” he said.
Huth's KITT was shipped to Burbank, while he and his wife flew in to the set.They filmed the segment with KITT over 14 hours.“They filmed my car with Bubba Watson, the pro golfer,” Huth said. “Watson was a big fan of 'Knight Rider.'”The thing about the restored Trans Am, said Huth, is that while it is drivable, he doesn't drive it on the roads. But when Jay Leno asks, however:“If it's going to be driven on the road, it's OK to have Jay Leno drive it,” he conceded.That wasn't the only celebrity that the KITT car brought into Huth's life.Met series starHe got to meet series star Hasselhoff in 2019 during his appearance on “Good Morning America.”Huth was asked to bring the KITT car to New York for Hasselhoff to use in a promotion for a show he was hosting.“I met him extremely briefly,” Huth said. “We had to have the car in Times Square at 3:30 a.m. to get it set up. Finally, at 9 a.m. when the segment was going to air, he got into the car.“I was in the back. He turned around and shook my hand. I got a nice picture,” Huth said.“'Knight Rider' launched him into fame, and then he did 'Baywatch,'” Huth said. “He loves talking about it and loves being remembered for it.”Huth was only a year old when “Knight Rider” debuted, but he saw the show when it went into syndication.“It was action/adventure,” Huth said. “It was a about a dying billionaire who created an indestructible, talking, bulletproof car.”Teaming up with Hasselhoff's character, the car and the man traveled the country righting wrongs and protecting the innocent.“The main theme was, he helped the underdog people, typical '80s hero-type stuff,” Huth said.
But the talking car set “Knight Rider” apart and made Huth a fan.“It was the car and the fantasy and all the neat things the car could do,” Huth said. “The car could talk to you and jump and drive by itself. It was the embodiment of the perfect car in the eyes of a young, impressionable 8-year-old.”Those impressions stuck, because Huth, who holds a federal government position as a day job, got together with A.J. Palmgren, a fellow “Rider” fan, in 2002.“He and I quickly hit it off,” Huth said. “We're interested in the nuances of the show.”“He lives in the Midwest,” Huth said. “We talk all the time. We've traveled across the country hunting down props.”Unraveling a mysteryTheir latest acquisition came after unraveling a mystery that would have made Michael Knight proud.In the television show, Knight and KITT travel in a tractor-trailer that takes the two to missions assigned to them by the Foundation for Law and Government, the entity they work for.Inside the trailer are the computers and diagnostics. It's where they brief and service KITT.The two set out to track down what had become of the GMC General tractor used in the show.It proved to be exceptionally difficult.Huth said a product-placement business, VISTA Group, was responsible for getting the GMC General onto the show. When the show ended, the truck went back to the VISTA Group, which went out of business in 2012.There was no paperwork to be found, but Palmgren did come across a 35-year-old obsolete computer that contained the vehicle identification numbers (VINs) of all the vehicles VISTA Group placed.There was just one problem. The computer ran on proprietary software, a computer language that no one knew anymore.“He spent four years trying to read data of this computer,” Huth said. “Finally, he was able to read thousands of VIN numbers.”He found the tractor went back to GMC, which sold it as a used truck.The eventual buyer had no idea it was used on a television show. He used it to haul produce on his Idaho farm.The farmer used it for 15 years and then parked it.In the show, the tractor-trailer rig was painted black and gold.Huth said when he and Palmgren went to examine the GMC, they found the farmer had painted it blue.Found the truckHowever, between the VIN, evidence of black and gold paint underneath the blue and markings from the studio, they knew they had found the “Knight Rider” truck.“It's all this knowledge and history that we acquired that let us know this was the legitimate truck,” he said.“We told the guy (beforehand); we didn't just show up,” Huth said. “He told us the history of the truck. He didn't try to jack up the price.”He said the truck is definitely worn from sitting idle for so long, and mice had taken up residence in it.But because the truck has a fiberglass body and the climate in Idaho is fairly dry, there's very little rust.“We should be able to fire up the engine very little effort,” Huth said. “With these trucks, it's not uncommon to rack up a million miles. It's got 230,000.“It's a Cummins diesel engine,” he said. “If we change the fluids and change the spark plugs, it should start right up.”The rescued vehicle is at Palmgren's farm in Iowa, but Huth said he's ready to start working on its restoration to exactly how it looked in 1986.“Here's the deal,” Huth said. “That would never happen today. In the last five to seven years, studios are understanding the value of props.“As late as 2008, disposable props didn't mean anything to the studios,” he said. “The original DeLorean from 'Back to the Future' was rotting on one of their backlots. People lobbied Universal to restore the car.”He said the collectors' market has really taken off, and now studios auction off props from shows.His wife of 15 years, Sarah, is tolerant of his hobby.“I can't say she understands, but she got a free trip to Los Angeles to meet Jay Leno,” Huth said. “That gave me a little leeway.”In addition to restoring vehicles from the show and writing show histories, Huth also has a YouTube channel, Knight Rider Historians, and a Knight Rider Historians Facebook page.“There is a huge fandom around the world,” he said. “It has only grown more popular. Now there are kids getting into it.”
