andyg
Full Member
Posts: 226
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Post by andyg on Jan 29, 2009 21:25:49 GMT -5
Hi guys, Just curious what season replica you guys plan to build, and why. I'd like to hear your story why you choose a paticular season for your KITT or KARR replica, and why it means something to you. Or if your building a Knight inspired or slightly altered version of KITT or KARR, why. I guess I'll kick things off a little..... I'm trying to go for an early 1st season KITT replica with a little bit of a Pilot twist to it. I've always liked the 2 TV dash set-up with the pilot style segmented overlays (for that bit of a mechanical look) and the white CRT TV's. I like the lower shelf area for that seperated look and the large red pushbuttons for that cockpit feel. The sloped back look of the gullwing to me adds to the sleek feeling the Trans Am already has built in. Large overhead console makes you feel like your piloting a jetfighter, and really adds to the car being designed around the driver. I prefer the later in the season 3 bar VB display, for one being to me, the most memorable feature of KITT, and having more of an actual speaking effect. (Gives a little personality) Sloped center console, again just seems to add to the T/A's sleek design. The numerious amount of buttons between the lower console and switchpods to me just screamed car of the future back in the day. Pilot/1st/2nd and even 3rd season nose all reflect personality in KITT to me. The "smile" of the nose is unmistakeable. Smooth design, and looks IMO much better than Pontiac originaly built for the car. Basicaly...It looks like it belongs. To sum up.....The reason why the 1st season KITT is my favorite, is because that was the car I first saw and feel in love with from the moment I laid eyes on it. Never forgot it, and always dreamed about it. Car of the future.... 27 years old now, but to me, still always will be. Hope I didn't get too corny for you guys, but I would love to hear you stories. ;D Andy
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Post by customkitt on Jan 29, 2009 21:52:04 GMT -5
Well Andy G you know me pretty well, but for those that don't, I am building a Pilot Kitt, and a Convertible Kitt.... I call it the alpha omega of Knight rider... The first and the last.... Plus I have two little boys so someday when I kick the bucket they can each have a car instead of splitting one.... Personally I do like the all the aspects of the pilot car better.... But I was drawn to the convertible because noone has built an accurate one yet.....
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Post by KentuckyKITT on Jan 29, 2009 22:08:01 GMT -5
Great topic Andy!
I'm building a sort of mix of the pilot/first/second season. I'm taking bits here and there of each that I like the most...the things that stood out to me and incorporating those into my car.
I currently have a Knight Passions front bumper which works perfectly for both 1st and 2nd season. I also have a pilot overhead console and pilot lower console. Each of these will have the pilot electronics. I will have a 2nd season style dash because I like the smoothness of the top of the dash. It will have 1st/2nd season electronics and contain pilot tv frames with CRTs. The pod and gullwing will also be 1st or 2nd season. Also, my car will feature the chrome L trims on the door panels, the window crank delete emblems on the door panels, and the chrome coat hooks. I also have carpeted plastics in my car.
At one time I was focussing on only 2nd season, but realized how much I really liked elements from the 1st season and the pilot. Therefore, I think by combining those elements I will have created the perfect KITT replica for me.
Bryan
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Post by ws6air on Jan 29, 2009 22:11:27 GMT -5
Well.... As much as you said Andy... Those are the reason I loved KITT also. I can tell one story though... Me and my parents were on vacation and my dad yelled at me in the place we were staying and said" Come here, I need to show you something.....HURRY!" He said..."Check this car out" "It talks" I was only 7-8 years old at the time and I was like WOW!... Now, funny thing was, we went to the grocery store that night before the show, and I was into Matchbox cars and just happened to see KITT.....I didn't know it was KITT, but I loved the red little tag that was on the car. I didn't know what it was, I just thought it was cool . So when my dad said, " check this out"... I said" That's the car you bought me dad!!!" every since then, I loved it. talk about corny..... also..... one more story.....
After following the car...I went to high school, and you know what kind of car I had to have.... you guessed it ... but it was a 91 with ground effects... after high school, I moved on to other cars, got married and wanted another one(3rd gen) so , you guessed it....I found another 3rd gen ....91 Trans am.......well, after having a kid, I traded it in on an Impala( which I loved , but regret selling the 91) ... Well, after talking with my wife.... she said, you can do one more project... you know what I was thinking? oh yey.... you guessed it...KITT!!!! Well, here I go again... so I found one in PA. and it had a blown 305 in it ...but the body was oh so very solid and straight. well I had a driver (truck) aligned to pick it up and did he show............NOPE.....no , HECK NO!!!! boy I was Irate! anyhoot!...... well , I looked at my wife and said, ....Are you ready for an adventure.... let's see how good those bearings are?!.... So I drove it all the way to North Carolina with a blown engine ....the thing overheated every timed we stopped(bearing heating up) and when we were only under 100 miles away....you guessed it...it blew... MAN oh MAN was I pissed but thankful it made it that far... well , lets just say, every since then , the car has almost been a curse on me and my wife. That should have told me something.
1st year..... barely getting home and having wife pissed 2nd year...... barely making it through the making of the bumper/wife pissed....... 3rd year..... a little better.....I'm hoping for this year to be better, hopfully , it will be... 2 years of h#LL and the third year is lookin better but who knows what it will bring?we will see...
I just want to tell my wife if she is listening in on this conversation or board....I love ya and thanks for supporting me thruout this hobby. I don't sometimes think it's a hobby , but an obsession. Just ask her ....... She has put up with me and sometimes I think I should have just had the ol' 91 back ...but I wanted a KITT.... Well , 2yrs of H#ll , I hope this one is better....
Thanks to all for listening and I'm sorry so long, but That's the jist of my last 2 yrs....I have made a tremendous amounts of people I CAN call my friends. Thanks guys for the support all the time ...you all know where I'm coming from when I say... You Know how I feel? I mean.... Sometimes after 2 yrs of making a car .... you need that pat on the back to say....move forward...don't go backwards..... I say this to all that are doing a KITT :::::
Don't look back....keep moving forward...and if you have a dream ... stick with it and it will come true... Thanks to all for listening.....
Marc
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Post by ws6air on Jan 29, 2009 22:20:02 GMT -5
Oh , I forgot...I'm doing a 1st season car... but I love all of them... but this is what I had seen that night with my dad... I love my DAD and that's just one of those moments Marc
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Post by azknight on Jan 30, 2009 0:14:59 GMT -5
My conversion is going to be a bit of a hybrid. I'm going with a season 3/4 exterior conversion with a Pilot interior. The 3/4 season nose will have the Pilot/Season 1 nose grill inserts. I like how the 3/4 season just looks smooth and lines up to the hood. I may decide to change this one day, but for now I'm sticking with it. As for the interior, it's pretty much entirely Pilot. It'll be a Pilot dash-over-dash, with Season 1/2 electronics. The vbox will be the graph style because I've always preferred that to the blinky red box on the Pilot. It'll be a pilot overhead console/electronics, Pilot/Season 1 lower console, and Season 1/2 switchpods. I'm not a complete purist when it comes to my conversion. I will just be doing what I like best and trying to implement features/parts I remember loving most as a kid.
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Post by Wraith Innovations on Jan 30, 2009 4:46:21 GMT -5
So far, (and this will change pretty much daily) I'm making one TA a second season car with black or dark charcoal interior color instead of tan, but the rest will be fairly normal to KITT. The second TA will be a GTA KARR with a modified 4th season bumper with GTA ground effects and interior that will be a revamped 1st/2nd season dash. Kind of my version of what KARR would look like if he was put back together after the series ended.
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andyg
Full Member
Posts: 226
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Post by andyg on Jan 30, 2009 17:31:09 GMT -5
Great stories guys! Thanks for sharing them. I love finding out about other hobbiest replicas, and what kind of plans they have for them.
Andy
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ivirscar
Full Member
Lectric Enterprises
Posts: 237
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Post by ivirscar on Jan 30, 2009 22:07:12 GMT -5
I will be doing a season 2 ALL THE WAY! Once I ever get a moment of time to even dream of the concept of starting a replica! LoL!! I see that Gary (Kittcraze) is selling his KITT here in winston... I'm thinking very hard about that one but 18k right now, I'd have to fight the bank Brenon
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KittCARR
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"G.T.A Knights"
Posts: 134
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Post by KittCARR on Feb 1, 2009 11:58:50 GMT -5
I'm a 4th season guy all the way....always have been. I partially blame my cousin for getting me into knight rider. He's 4 years older, so he had the opportunity to see some of the episodes as they aired.
I remember him telling me about the show with the "black car" when they started airing re-runs. The very first episode I ever saw was "Knight and Nerd". I've seen that episode so many times, I never want to see it again.....lol.....but that's the episode that started the obsession for me.
The one tv dash was the first one I saw, so for me, that was the only dash I knew of. It wasn't until later on, that I learned of this "two tv dash".
All through elementary/high school, I dreamed of driving a trans am. It was the only car I ever wanted. Strangely enough, I didn't want to build a replica, all I wanted was a black trans am with the rims and caps, and a blackout, that's all.
After I finally bought my trans am, I decided to only do an exterior conversion. It wasn't much longer after that I told myself...."what are you thinking, your dream is Kitt, not just a black trans am"......decision made.
I remember obsessing over where I would find accurate 3/4 season parts, I had no idea a guy named Billy would come along and make all that a reality.....and for that, I will always be thankful.
I love the 1/2 cars, but my dream is definately a 3/4 car. I'm one of the few that liked SPM (I know, I know). My car will have the SPM panel, along with the chemical analyzer.
Lots of money, but lots of fun, that's what it's all about.
Anyways guys/gals, thanks for reading.
Joey.
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Post by knightdriver on Feb 1, 2009 14:10:11 GMT -5
I am going the same route as Andy for the most part.
A full Pilot Interior with the exception of the voicebox. I like the one with the 3 bargraphs. Was never a fan of the blinking box.
Only thing I am doing differently is that I am using LCD's in the dash. I will modify myself a set of those screen accurate frames to work with them. I'll have the look but not the hassle of trying to install those CRT's. I hate doing those. LOL.
I am also redoing my web site from scratch which will be mostly didicated to the car. All other items will be pretty much nill and void. We shall see. ;D
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Post by ripperace on Feb 2, 2009 6:16:41 GMT -5
Well mine is gonna be a "hybrid" of what KARR should have looked like in the third season. We all know that he was KITT's Senior. We also know that essentially the first time we seen KARR, he was a pilot KITT. OK, fast forward two years to when he reappears.......He's a second season version??? Huh? What gives? I never paid it any mind when I was a kid, and most people probably never noticed. But after I waited for season three to come out on DVD, I was really scrutinizing the different versions of the KITT's there were. So when my favorite childhood episode was viewed, I was really kinda thrown off. (Besides, how the hell did he have a Pointer Sisters tape in his tape deck when he hadn't seen the light of day since 82, and the song in question was from 84? ? Hmmmmm.....Yeah.....LOL!) So after much deliberation, and changing my plans for the basic look of the KARR project, I have settled on what I want him to be. He will have an early interior. Besides the dash. I still don't really dig that dash on dash look...Sorry Pilot fans!! It just doesn't scream "car of the furture" to me. It never has. I've always preferred the flat top look of the second season cars. It's just a cleaner look. So he'll have a second season dash shell, pilot upper and lower consoles, and with any luck, Brenon's new revised pilot electronics. I plan on getting the interior 'glass parts from Billy. I had thought about getting a complete Colie dash, but after much deliberation yet again, I'm gonna go with my original plan and build the dash myself. The whole car is being built by me, and it'll mean much more to me in the end when the car is built by me, my way. Anywho, back to the subject at hand. The car, and what it's gonna be. The exterior is gonna be season one styled with that style nose, but with the two toned black/silver paint job. In my eyes, this is what KARR should have been in the third season. Accurate to the show? Nah! Accurate chronologiclly? Not really, because of the different style dash. BUT this is what I want him to be. More accurate to what he should have been, with the cleaner look on the dash. So there you have it! Not much getting done to the car as of now, cuz it's so darned cold in Ohio this winter. But my plan is to have the car off the jackstands, and drivable by summer. Ken from Wraith Innovations (the guy who's getting my nose business) informs me that it won't be too long for the nose. I've got a back bumper ordered, and a friend landed my paint for minimal cost (free.....Long story....) I'd really like to at least have the outside of the car completed this year. Next year will be all interior. I might buy some components earlier, but I won't tackle the interior till after the exterior is squared away. He's basiclly gonna be a totally restored converted Trans Am. Every nut and bolt will have been taken off the car. Every nook and cranny cleaned and refinished. It's a huge undertaking, and it's been taking longer than originally planned. But it's no rush to me. It's a hobby I love when I get the ambition and time. If I get the car done in the next three years, I'll be happy as hell. If not, no biggie. That's about it!!! Ripper
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Post by swapshop on Feb 3, 2009 10:02:05 GMT -5
Hello I have a 90% done 83 T/A It's a 2nd season with a forth season bumper. I have worked on it off and on for almost 6yrs now. I have 2 sons that love the car but the oldest wants the new Mustang KITT. And so starts my new project .lol I willl be looking to by the hood scanners and dash orb if you can Help please let me know. Thanks Swapshop
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andyg
Full Member
Posts: 226
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Post by andyg on Feb 4, 2009 17:48:43 GMT -5
Hey Shawn, Glad to see you made it... Thanks again for sharing your stories guys... Andy
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Post by ripperace on Feb 5, 2009 6:49:03 GMT -5
I just re-read the posts, and it appears Bryan and I have about the same ambitions. Except he's building KITT, and I'm building KARR. LOL! Great minds think alike, huh B-Rye?
As for why I'm doing a KARR rather than a KITT? I forgot to add that aspect of the story, didn't I?
Well, it's real simple. He fits me better! LOL! I've always been drawn to the darker things in life, and always have been fascinated by horror movies, heavy music, halloween, and things that go bump in the night. KARR was a thing that went bump in the night for me as a kid. I remember when TDR aired, it was all that my friends and I talked about in school for the next week. KARR this, and KARR that, and how cool it was....Pardon my french, but we didn't give a $hit about the story! LOL! All we cared about was the fact that there was an evil KITT! How his scanner sounded so much weirder, and that voice box! It wasn't normal. You could tell he was one bad dude! He even sounded bad a$$ when he was running! YEAH!!!! And his voice was so much meaner sounding. I even went as far as to say that KITT sounded like a sissy compared to KARR. (Sorry Mr. Daniels!)
Then when they brought KARR back in the third season, WOAH!!! It was another weeklong topic for my friends to suffer through with me! LOL! So yeah, you could say I was obsessed! I even built a KARR version of the MPC model KITT after KvK aired. (My mother MIGHT even still have it put away with my other models I built). I used to face both those models toward each other like when the show cars squared off in TDR! Only my KARR model was two toned after the KvK version.
It's not that I don't love KITT or that Micheal Knight and KITT weren't my childhood heros. Far from it. In a perfect world, I'd have both, a KITT and a KARR. But unfortunately I don't have room for TWO Trans Ams, and building one has been sucking up a lot of time and money. Plus some people have thought I've lost all good sense to even attempt to build one.
It's often funny too, because when the subject is brought up that I'm in the process of building a "KITT car, only it's a KARR car", people ALWAYS say, "Yeah! I Remember that! KITT's evil twin! That was cool!" That usually follows with people wanting to see it, or wanting a picture of themselves in it when it's done, and on and on. It usually winds up with disappointed faces when I tell them that "KARR is still on jackstands!" LOL!
The whole basis for me building a conversion car was due to the fact that Knight Rider was my absolute favorite show when it came out. The Dukes and the General Lee were second fiddle to Micheal Knight and KITT in my eyes. But after seeing that you could actually build one of these cars, and there were guys who made the stuff to be able to, those old funny vibes started creeping back up about Knight Rider again. All the fond memories I had as a kid watching that show. Then the thought of KARR crept back in my mind. It was like I never forgot about him, but I didn't see anyone offering KARR parts until I stumbled across Christian Forget's site and seen the KARR version of the voice box. Then it was full on, I knew what I was gonna do, why I was gonna do it, and that it would be different. I'd seen a KITT conversion at that point in time. There used to be one locally many years ago. That's cool and all, but how much cooler would it be to build that car that had you and your friends talking about it a week after the episodes aired? Now THAT would be a stunner!!!
So when he's done, one thing I do want to do is drive him to some of my old childhood friends' houses! Just to get a rise out of everyone of them and to see their faces. Only one of them knows that I'm building him. The rest haven't seen me in ages. So that is one thing I want to do. Shake 'em up a little, just for old times sake! LOL!
Plus, like I said before, I know I was drawn to KARR so much as a kid. Why not build something that was so damned cool, and make you get a funny feeling that you haven't had in 20 some years. I guess it's like seeing that old girfriend again. Or having a memory or feeling that you liked, but just haven't been able to touch that exact same vibe in so long. It'd make me feel like a kid again. OK! There it is! And if I can get just a taste of that same magic I used to feel when I was 8 years old, I don't see how that's gonna hurt me any......
Ripper
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