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“KNIGHT RIDER” TRANS AM

by Kathy J. Meyer

photos by Patrick E. Tritle

Being a big fan of the TV show “Knight Rider” I wanted a model of “KITT” the modified Trans Am on the show.  Since this was before one was available. I created my own version of the car using the excellent Revell Firebird Trans Am kit in 1/16^th scale.

This project to approximately 300 hours to complete and as I was finishing the model, MPC came out with a 1/24th scale offering of the “Knight Rider.”  Oh well.

The project was started with no idea as to where to begin and no plans.  First I began looking for a model of “KITT” and found none was available.  The TV show had just debuted three months before, so I started looking at the car very closely every week, trying to figure out how the car was designed, such as the dashboard, taillights, grille and the scanner light.

I purchased Revell’s 1/16^th scale Firebird Trans Am.  This scale was chosen because I wanted to get my fingers inside the car to work on it.  The model is twelve inches long and four inches wide.  I knew I couldn’t get my fingers inside a 1/24^th scale kit to do the work I wanted to do.  And besides, I couldn’t find an appropriate kit for my project in 1/24^th scale.

The modifications were all guesswork, a lot of cut to fit.  Some cuts were wrong and had to be cut again, and again until the fit was right. Other than that, the model was built per the instructions.

Found another fabric that looked like it would work, a much thinner and shorter cropped velour, bought ¼ yard and went home with it and began to cover the seats using rubber cement, it took to the detail on the seats and looked perfect, now, I was off and running!

Using cosmetic scissors, I cut it into as many large pieces as I could, to fit areas such as the floorboards and trunk areas. The front seats were covered with three pieces of cloth cut to fit, using the opposite end of an X-Acto knife blade to press the cloth into the detail of the seats and door panels.  The headliner was finished in the same fashion.

The places in the interior that were hard plastic, the hinge for the back window, and armrests in the back seat, were painted Testors Flat Tan.  Some modifying was done to the interior.  The model came with a standard transmission,  “KITT” had an automatic, I took an X-Acto knife and cut down the boot for the shifter, and replaced it with a piece of .040 inch clapboard sheet styrene with .030 inch spacing, cut to fit. Took the edge of a file and filed a groove in it. To get the effect of the plate with the shifter positions.

The knob of the shifter was round and chromed.  The chrome was sanded off and the shifter reshaped, the painted flat black, along with the entire console.  A hole was drilled into the clapboard in the “park” position, and the clutch on the pedal assembly was removed.  I took an X-Acto blade and carefully scraped the chrome off the back side of the rear view mirror, and left the “mirror” chromed to give the effect of a mirror and glued it in place in the windshield.

One of the modifications to the Trans Am was the changing of the model from a standard transmission to an automatic as found in the TV car.

For between the layers, I filed the ridges off a strip of clapboard so it would be smooth, glued it so it only extended 1/16-inch from the face of the dash.  This part of the dash would extend below the stock dash. Another strip of clapboard was glued to the very bottom of the lower part of the dash.  The whole lower assembly of the dash is as long as the upper part of the dash.

After drying I used a candle flame to barely heat the side with the video monitors to bend it toward the front of the console.  This was done very slowly not to disrupt the assembly.  I used .020-inch sheet styrene to enclose the back of the dash. Finished the passenger side with a piece of  .020-inch sheet styrene glued to fit from the top of the dash, then painted the entire assembly flat black.

To configure the displays of the dash, the speedometer, oil pressure readout, tachometer, surveillance mode display and fuel supply display, I used .038mm white, green and red graphic art tape.  This took using two tweezers and a magnifying glass to see what I was doing.  About this time my long fingernails came in handy.

Testors Fluorescents were used to paint on the dash.  I cut up a Testors Model Master brochure for the gray paper to use as the two video screens.  A clear red parts tree from my parts box was cut up to make five control buttons, placed below the video screens.

For the steering wheel, I had to create a “yoke,” like those found in aircraft.  The stock steering wheel was carefully broken to use the circle for handles for the new one.  The smooth side of the clapboard was used to create the center.  It was shaped like a wide triangle, just as wide as the stock steering wheel and flat on top, to match the steering column and grooved to form a design on the face of the steering “yoke.”

The Grille

To create the unique grill, I used the stock grille.  The center was cut out and replaced with  .020-inch sheet styrene, to make the space for the oscillating light. Pieces of .020-inch sheet styrene were cut to fit in front of the headlights and to cover the flat area of the grille.  A pattern was made from the stock grille by tracing around it.  This was checked against the stock grille and the excess sheet styrene was cut away.

Another piece of .020-inch sheet styrene was cut to fit in front of the grille and meet up with the extension, and bent to form a wide V shape.  A bumper was formed from a four-inch piece of part tree.  This was sanded and heat bent to fit the shape of the bottom of the stock grille.  All the gaps and seams were filled with automotive putty and sanded smooth.

For the scanner light, I tried to rig some way of making an LED light go back and forth mechanically, bit it never worked out.  I ended up using a clear red parts tree, filed to shape and fit into the space between the headlights just inside the engine compartment, with a small LED light powered by a three-volt camera battery, which is slightly smaller than a quarter, dropped in front of the radiator.

The dash is completely redone to simulate “KITT’s” instrument panel.  The kit dash was used as a backing for the modified dash.

Finishing Details

The ridges of the taillight piece were filed down and two layers of peel and stick window tint added and trimmed to fit over the taillight piece to make it look almost black. For the T-tops, I let my Testors Model Master Gloss Black set for a few days so it would separate, the poured off the thinner and a very small mount of color and lightly airbrushed the underside of the T-tops.  This gives a good effect of smoked glass.

The body of the car was primered with automotive gray primer using an airbrush.  I wanted a better finish that I thought I would get with paint for plastics, so I opted for automotive paint.  I asked Mark Fields, a fellow member of the Albuquerque Scale Modelers Club, who know about automotive paints, to help me with the body with black automotive lacquer.

This tool several light coats of paint.  It was allowed to dry several days before continuing.  A license plate was fashioned out of .020-inch sheet styrene. Testors blue and white were mixed to achieve the blue on California license plates.  Yellow transfer type lettering was used to spell out “Knight,” silver striping tape for the frame.  The license plate was glued in place on the back bumper.

The center of the grille was cut out and replaced with  .020-inch sheet styrene making room for the oscillating light.

The large scale REVELL kit of a Pontiac Firebird was chosen because the interior was to be modified to simulate the TV show car and be easily viewed.

This project took approximately 300 hours to complete, just about six months.  As I was finishing the final assembly, MPC came out with a 1/24 scale version of the “Knight Rider.”  The same car I had just built! (I kept having thoughts during this project that this would happen.)  The model is now on display along with the rest of my ribbon winners in my apartment.

I entered “KITT” in the 1983 New Mexico State Fair and placed third in the Automotive category.  Maybe I should have entered it in Science Fiction?

The control panels located on each side of the steering “yoke” were fashioned from .020-inch sheet styrene and buttons were painted on the two columns per side in various colors.

The Trans Am was painted with black automotive lacquer, first priming with automotive gray primer.

Fast-forward a few years.

The model has now a electronic board in the front bumper that powers a light through 6 LED lights mounted in the space.  With a 9-volt mercury battery makes this light look like the real thing. 

At a car show at the convention center the “Knight Rider” car was a featured attraction.  On a display poster were the technical specs of this vehicle if it were to really exist.