Graham himself had let the movie Smokey and the Bandit use a Trans Am and it was considered to be a master automotive product placement. He was Pontiac’s West Coast public relations manager, Eric Dahlquist.Īt the time, Pontiac’s Sales Promotion Manager Jim Graham found the show’s idea to be corny and decided that it went against the kind of image Pontiac wanted for its Firebird Trans Ams, shocking Dahlquist. One man at Pontiac knew and saw the potential when the company was first approached by NBC for a Trans Ams to be modified into the immortal KITT. Knight Rider premiered on NBC in 1982, and little did the show’s producers or even David Hasselhoff himself know the crazy amounts of success the show would attain and the money it would make. RELATED: The Secret Behind The Knight Rider's 1982 Pontiac Firebird The question is, where are the Knight Rider Pontiac Trans Am cars? And can we get our hands on them, just to be able to ride off into the sunset with the Knight Rider theme blaring from the stereo? Only five of the said Trans Ams survived in the end.

Three cars were made for the first season of the show, and the success led to a total of 15-20 cars used for stunting and such. It served as the perfect product placement by the GM-owned Pontiac at the time, and one of the coolest onscreen cars ever. In fact, we can still hear the theme song like a worm in our heads the moment we talk about Knight Rider, the stuff boyhood dreams are made of. Along with Knight, the car was the hero of the show. KITT was a gorgeous black 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am with a rather annoying voice and a long-suffering if humorous attitude. Knight was a curly-headed hunk who invariably got into trouble and had to be bailed out by none other than his anthropomorphic ride, KITT, as in multi-talented Knight Industries Two Thousand. Of course, at the time, David Hasselhoff wasn’t the shirtless red-shorts-wearing lifeguard named Mitch Buchannon with amazing pecs, but Michael Knight. If you’re an ‘80s kid (raises hand), you remember The Hoff and KITT from the hit TV series Knight Rider.

Knight rider episodes wiki