Auction: David’s Personal KITT Knight Rider Car on Sale

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/95041485_davids-personal-kitt-knight-rider-car

by baxtr • 6 years ago

88 55 6 years ago

liveauctioneers.com

tskulbru• 6 years ago

This is great news for the various AI researches around.

tinus_hn• 6 years ago

It’s just a car with a nice looking but totally impractical dashboard and steering wheel.

There’s a YouTube video of someone driving it, it’s great nostalgic value but that’s all really.

mrunkel2• 6 years ago

I believe the comment you replied to was meant in jest.

stedaniels• 6 years ago

Surely there'd be value in attempting to reverse engineer the AI?

joosters• 6 years ago

Let's not get carried away, it doesn't even have a steering wheel :)

mhd• 6 years ago

Or they could retrofit the existing AI with a state of the art one.

"Super Pursuit Mode, KITT!"

"Looking for Proper Fursuit Mods on www.cyberfurries4u.org, Michael"

mrunkel2• 6 years ago

I don't understand this site.

Are we pre-bidding for the car? The actual live auction will take place on the 23rd of January, so what would be the purpose of bidding now except to drive up the price ahead of time?

FULLY FUNCTIONAL K.I.T.T. CAR WITH FULL CONVE3RSION CAR LOCATED IN U.K. LOT WINNER RESPONSIBLE FOR DELIVERY EXPENSE, IF HAMMER PRICE EXCEEDS 25% ABOVE RESERVE PRICE, THE HOFF WILL PERSONALL DELIVER THE CAR TO THE NEW OWNER.

How unprofessional is it to have so many typos and punctuation mistakes in one short blurb?

The auction says it ships from Canoga Park, CA, the description says it's located in U.K.

What is a buyer's premium?

dcminter• 6 years ago

The buyer's premium is a fee (usually a fixed percentage on top of the auction price) paid by the buyer.

dkdk8283• 6 years ago

The buyers premium in this case is 21%.

technothrasher• 6 years ago

The auction says it ships from Canoga Park, CA, the description says it's located in U.K.

Pictures are from a shop in London. I imagine contacting them might shed some light on it for an interested party. https://yiannimize.com/

What is a buyer's premium?

Buyer additionally pays a percentage of their winning bid to the auction house. This is very common in auctions.

88• 6 years ago

Yiannimize is the business of a well known British Youtuber. The business is mostly known for car wrapping.

See below a video Yianni made with this car back in 2016:

https://youtu.be/FFgJT9H9z0o

Edit: It looks like this may be the current/previous owner:

https://www.instagram.com/knightriderlondon/?hl=en

qrbLPHiKpiux• 6 years ago

Did you see his cheeseburger video?

netsharc• 6 years ago

How unprofessional is it to have so many typos and punctuation mistakes in one short blurb?

The blurry picture of Hasselhoff about to step out of the car and not ready for a pic is the cherry on top...

mvanbaak• 6 years ago

This looks fake to me.

Only some pictures of the inside of the car. Lots of spelling/grammer errors in the announcement. Is it USA or UK?

Of course I can be wrong, but I dont buy it.

brandall10• 6 years ago

Did you miss the ones with David Hasselhoff inside of it?

davegardner• 6 years ago

David Hasselhoff is promoting it on Twitter so it is legitimate https://twitter.com/DavidHasselhoff/status/13454826542973132...

MegaDeKay• 6 years ago

"IF HAMMER PRICE EXCEEDS 25% ABOVE RESERVE PRICE, THE HOFF WILL PERSONALL DELIVER THE CAR TO THE NEW OWNER."

Capitalized per the original article.

OMG

Capitalized because this would be awesome.

cgriswald2• 6 years ago

What is legitimate, though? If Hasselhoff picks up a converted Trans Am it’s his personal KITT car, but doesn’t otherwise have any other relationship to the show. There’s no indication this is the car from the show nor is there an indication as to how long Hasselhoff had owned the car. Arguably he needn’t even be the owner; it could be “DAVIDS PERSONAL” simply by virtue of the personal delivery by Hasselhoff of the price is high enough.

amelius• 6 years ago

I suspect this will be bought by Waymo or another autonomous driving company, for PR.

motohagiography2• 6 years ago

That's genius. It's more than PR, it's an organic user experience with mainstream familiarity for hundreds of millions of people. If I were at a large car company, this is easily worth the price of 2-3 engineers.

As a product manager, I would use the popular understanding of KITT as a reference early-adopter customer experience, not to replicate, but as a median.

KITT's dashboard instrumentation is amazing (and oddly seems to have a synth ASD envelope if you look closely), which seems hilarious, but the point is to be a sophisticated command console for powerful operations, which is what it looks like. Totally different from the disconnected infotainment web pages of today.

The entire car UX today is about permission, approval, safety, and comfort, like a kind of suburban living room in a display case. Whereas what the KITT (and motorcycle) UX is about is measurement, instrumentation, and consequence. A KITT style UX may be the secret to getting self-driving car traction because almost nobody will believe autonomous land vehicles are safe, but they will believe they are powerful.

I should do a self-driving car startup.

intrepidhero• 6 years ago

I love the "powerful" retro sci-fi look but let's be honest about KITT, this UX is (unsurprisingly) terrible. All those glowy bar-graphs that line up perfectly are hard to differentiate and flat out inappropriate for some measurements. There is way more information presented than needed, and it's not grouped into logical clusters at all. It looks super cool but it's a safety nightmare.

The dashboard morphed a little during the show's run. KITT must have got an upgrade because the speedometer max went from 200 to 500 MPH. It's got a built in printer! I'm dying to know what "Propagation Delay HRS" is supposed to mean. And you know it's 80s because: no blue LEDs.

https://knight-rider.fandom.com/wiki/K.I.T.T._(2000) https://www.deviantart.com/davemetlesits/art/Kitt-dash-S1-2-... https://www.deviantart.com/davemetlesits/art/Knight-Rider-Ki...

tass• 6 years ago

There’s at least one home reproduction of this, and based on a review it’s horrible to drive: https://youtu.be/V1WbvwQCTvU

I’d love to see a museum pick it up assuming it was used in the show’s production.

mschaef• 6 years ago

and based on a review it’s horrible to drive:

Not really a surprise. The design of the car is close to 40 years old, even before you take into account the age of the car itself and all the junk piled on for the purpose of looking good on screen.

dharmab• 6 years ago

Many cars of that era are still delightful to drive:

https://youtu.be/6u8xlg-q5Xc?t=576

https://youtu.be/v5whGoNQK6I?t=172

A lack of safety regulation allowed for cars significantly lighter and simpler than what you can buy today. They're definitely not _fast_ cars, but they are _enjoyable_ cars.

It's mostly the interior that ruins the KITT cars.

Digory• 6 years ago

assuming it was used in the show’s production

There are only two blurry photos of an old Hasselhoff in the car. I suspect someone has converted an old car, and agreed to pay Hasselhoff well for the privilege of putting his name on the title.

It's like the home contractors who reluctantly sell "the builder's own dream home" every year.

loudouncodes• 6 years ago

Fully functional?

I have expectations...

fnord77• 6 years ago

surprised Tesla hasn't included a whimsical "KITT mode" in their cars' software.

Maybe copyright issues.

LoSboccacc• 6 years ago

we just have to wait til 2087

_nickwhite• 6 years ago

I was surprised by the seemingly low price of this car: "Estimate $175,000 - $300,000"

Jay Leno owns a replica of the Back to the Future DeLorean valued at $750,000.

I think anyone would agree the DeLorean is way sexier than the Trans Am, but I would argue its place among pop culture is pretty high, probably higher than the auction asking price.

cgriswald2• 6 years ago

I don’t see anything in the post that convinces me this isn’t replica as well (albeit one ostensibly owned by Hasselhoff).

metalliqaz3• 6 years ago

from what I remember, it is a replica... sorta. Made for promotion rather than for filming. There were several filming cars, and most were damaged for various reasons during the show. Also, most of those didn't have interiors. Interior shots were done in a different cockpit from the exterior shots, which were mostly stunt cars.

agumonkey3• 6 years ago

I don't think any of them wins in terms of design appeal (that Pontiac is really really peculiar and peak in its own genre). Now I think that BtTF got 1) an already very excentric car (pontiac was mainstream) 2) hollywood seal of fame, TV is important but not as glam.

tmpxgdqrcKFuG• 6 years ago

FULLY FUNCTIONAL

With Turbo Boost and the molecular bonded shell that repels bullets and explosions?

agumonkey3• 6 years ago

You might have to buy Devon's truck and hire Bonnie for a while.

weinzierl• 6 years ago

How do actors end up with expensive film props? It doesn't seem to be rare that actors and other people involved in movie production sell movie props. I always wondered how this works: Do they buy it from the production company or is it all courtesies?

bluedevil2k2• 6 years ago

Not too many years ago all the props of movies and TV shows were simply destroyed when the TV show or movie ended. There was no "collector market". Since the items were worthless to the studios when filming was complete, actors were allowed to take what they wanted. This is why you rarely see items from the early days of movies (1920-1950) for sale, they were rarely saved. The movie posters from the movies in those days were some of the only items preserved, and those can command premium prices, even into the millions for a poster like "Metropolis". It also makes you appreciate the fact that the ruby slippers from "Wizard of Oz" were saved. (Source - the Hollywood ride in Disney Studios)

GekkePrutser2• 6 years ago

Yeah lots of stuff is just left to rot outside. Like that Enterprise Bridge (though it wasn't the one from the show but from the Vegas Experience)

thrav• 6 years ago

After a season or 2 — if it’s a hit — I bet it becomes pretty easy to negotiate ownership of items into your contract, since they can’t do the show without you anymore and it’s a relatively small price to pay.

See Sex and the City wardrobe.

jasonv• 6 years ago

If they end up as producers on the show, they can often just get it granted to them, or included in the promotion obligations that are part of their contracts.

capableweb• 6 years ago

A lot of people (probably not big time actors though, more like taking and no one says no) end up stealing props and smuggling them out from production, as otherwise they wouldn't be able to get anything from the production.

At least from the few people I've visited who had props at home, 90% of the props were stolen by them on the last day of shootings.

rootbear• 6 years ago

I'm wondering how KITT feels about this. Did he and the Hoff have a spat, so Hoff is dumping him? So many questions...

baxtr• 6 years ago

If you won the auction you could ask KITT exactly that...

fiftyacorn• 6 years ago

Are they certain it's KITT? There was a baddie version of KITT for a while called KATT

coleca• 6 years ago

I thought it was KARR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KARR_(Knight_Rider)?

metalliqaz3• 6 years ago

KARR

You get 10 demerits on your nerd card.

Also KARR was white, not black.

GNOMES• 6 years ago

I see they are selling other Hoff items, but still question why not sell the car on a more automotive focused site like Bring a Trailer

5555624• 6 years ago

Probably because as a car, it's not worth as much. I think this is the sort of thing that would appeal to a memorabilia collector, rather than a car collector. If I was selling the Batmobile, from either the movies or the TV series, I would not think of selling it a car auction.

slowhand09• 6 years ago

In other news... Kung Fury 2 https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/12/david-hasselhoff-kung...

metalliqaz3• 6 years ago

Kung Fury was amazing. But after years of Vaporwave, /r/outrun, and all that, not sure that formula will land in the same way.

agumonkey3• 6 years ago

Just like many sequels of this kind, it had to happen anyway. Just to finish the (new) wave.

Auction: David’s Personal KITT Knight Rider Car on Sale

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