knight rider online

Now that I got our new Canon Digital Ixus up and running I'll have some nice new pictures for you to see. I myself find it very interesting to see what kind of stuff there is around related to Knight Rider. The first one is not listed under official "Knight Rider" title but the reference is so obvious that I think it should be introduced.

Tomy Jumpsters "KITT"

This is a small (7,8 x 3,9 x 4 cm) black plastic Pontiac Firebird look-a-like car that jumps (read turboboosts). Ok, in the 80's it surely was called KITT for us kids who moaned for our parents to buy it for us. You arm the car by pressing the button in the middle of the car. Then you send the car in forward motion and in random (as far as i tried it) distance the car will jump upwards with some string mechanism.

This was a very common toy in Finland among boys of my generation. There were some other "Jumpster"-models as well, but they weren't so heavily related to Knight Rider, if at all...

My car is constructed of two different cars I found from a junk collectors' fair. The plastic body and chassis as well as the tires tend to get some damage when used heavily in crime fighting and sadly the metallic parts inside collect some rust easily and the jumping mechanism gets quite stiff. That's why I've used parts of two different cars in this one. The car is easy to dismantle and assemble by yourself.

The writing on the bottom of the car says: "JUMPSTERS TM, (C) TOMY JAPAN, PATENT PENDING"

Here's the pic:

Your Canon digital cam takes good pics, it captures awesome details. Pretty good small KR "related" toy there. It resembles a stock Trans Am but good enough for a KR fan in those days. Can't wait to see the other goodies you have to share.

Ooh, that picture brings some memories to my mind, those were fun toys

-KITTfan-

Tell me about it. Haha. I knew I wasn't the only one. I have some more of these nice "nostalgic" things that I've tried to collect. Pictures are coming soon.

Do you KITTfan remember if there were any launchers for these things?

I remember using a white Matchbox car launcher to give speed to these things, but I'd got it with some other car. They were the one's that you programmed a number from a knob. Those cars also rode some distance but then a fifth wheel popped out from the bottom of the car and the car did a turn related to the number you had selected from the knob.

They were able to go ski-mode too BTW. But I don't recall them having any more similarities to KITT. Maybe I can find those somewhere...

Unfortunately I don't remember if that jumper had a launcher, I just remember the toy from the button on it's roof.
I had some red Trans-Am looking little toy that had a launcher but don't remember if it jumped or did anything special. It got lost during the years so I can't verify.
The toy with a knob I don't remember.
Great stuff, keep the pics coming

-KITTfan-

PS: Here's some KR stuff I have with pics:
http://www.geocities.com/kittfani/docs/stuff.html