knight rider online

I heard from 2 different sources exactly how the trans am was selected for the show.One source,Glen Larson ,says that the trans am was just released and they took the first 2 that came off the factory production line because he liked the curves and lines of the car.The other source I heard was that a huge train of 14 or so trans ams were being shipped to pontiac dealerships and the train derailed.Theres a some law saying if the cars are damaged in certain ways they can not be sold at all.They were donated to Universal for use on the series Knight Rider.

One possible answer is that the train derailed after Glen made his choice of the trans am to be the car for the series and Pontiac decided not to just have the cars destroyed, rather donated to Universal.

The other question I have I hope someone can answer is this all the Kitt cars were believed to have been fiberglass and not the real trans ams.The cars were eventualy destroyed because of copyright issues.Others say they have tracked down the serial numbers of the original cars and found that they were going on toure or being displayed and people have validated this.Were the cars destroyed or put on display?

As I understand it, both stories are true except for the fact that the train accident was a "fortunate" coincidence for Universal; they had already selected the Trans Am and then they were able to take advantage of using the damaged ones.

Coincidence, or conspiracy?

Anyway, that's how it seems to all fit together from my readings.

doesn't Glen Larson tell both those stories on the Season 1 Commentary for the pilot?

edwardknight2007 wrote:doesn't Glen Larson tell both those stories on the Season 1 Commentary for the pilot?

He tells it pretty much as Michael does here...they had the first 2 '82s off the production line, then later got the trainload.

If I remember rightly, there were 22 cars in the train wreck. Glen donated 11 to Knight Rider and kept 11 for the Fall Guy.

Thanks Paul!

What about them being destroyed?

i wonder if they were "all" trans ams? if i recall correctly the fall guy car was a white firebird hardtop right?

I've heard the "all the cars were destoyed" rumor many times, yet "authentic" cars keep popping up in museums and for auction (beyond just regular eBay stuff.) In general, Hollywood doesn't like destroying anything; it's much cheaper and easier to store something than to have to rebuild it at some point. I never bought into the idea that the cars were intentionally destroyed.