“It’s a standard, 1984 Pontiac Trans Am,” said Barry Miller of Ashton, who took a childhood obsession and turned it into a reality.

Miller explained the car was bought with the sole intent of transforming it into KITT from the popular 1980s television show “Knight Rider.”
“I had the dashboard built before I had the car; taking the measurements of a Firebird in a junk yard to make sure that everything would match. I built it, crossed my fingers, and it fit!”
KITT stands for Knight Industries Two Thousand. In the TV show, the company, Knight Industries was the company created by Wilton Knight who not only created KITT but a crime-fighting organization. There were criminals the law couldn’t touch so that’s where Michael Knight (played in the series by David Hasselhoff) and KITT came into being.

Miller said the car is as close to the car in the show as possible and the only concessions that were made are those that affect drivability.
“The steering wheel is bit narrower than the one in the show and some of the dash switches are labeled differently to reflect their actual purposes in the car. The red and green switches on the center console are a good example of that, they represent the audio/video controls, the red controls all of the lighting. In the show that’s not what they did, but I wanted to give them actual functions to make it more fun. And it’s a standard 305 V8 engine,” Miller said.
He continued that it took about nine years to build the car but part of that was due to the fact that he was living in Madison, Wis., at the time, going to school.
“I was only able to work on it during the weekends because I kept the car in my dad’s garage in West Brooklyn,” he said. “And yes, it does talk! I did that by taking phrases from the DVD’s of the show, editing and cleaning them up using audio production software. The phrases are all in a music playback program that I have on my smartphone and it’s connected to the car via Bluetooth. KITT was voiced in the show by William Daniels who was at the same time also on St. Elsewhere.”
Miller has won a few prizes at car shows, placing shows that are participant judged that have a Top 40 or Top 50 depending on how big the venue is; a Top 50 placing from the Ashton Show and a Top 80 from Stillman Valley.
“One of them I’m especially proud of is from the Creston Booster Days car show in 2016,” he beamed. “I got one for Most Unique Vehicle. There are other replicas of this car but this one isn’t known to anyone that was connected with the TV show. That could change in the future, of course. There are events that you can go to that are designed specifically for Knight Rider replicas. For the time being, I’m just happy owning it and taking it to the local car shows.”
Miller admits that kids of all ages get a kick out of the car, especially the voice function. Two types of kids enjoy it; youngsters and the “big kids” who are in their 30s and loved the car in the show they watched growing up. Miller was obsessed with the car back then and from that came the passion to build a car like this. It was his dream car and he said some day he would own one.
“It came down to my big hobby of electronics. I was finding the parts suppliers online and discovered the things I needed were readily available and not that expensive. You can buy the dashboard fully assembled but I decided to do this myself, it was a lot more interesting and fun. And this car has been restored inside and out, including new carpet and interiors that were the color of KITT in the show.”