7 ms·
Auction: David’s Personal KITT Knight Rider Car on Sale
- tskulbru 6y agoThis is great news for the various AI researches around.
- tinus_hn 6y agoIt’s just a car with a nice looking but totally impractical dashboard and steering wheel. There’s a YouTube video of someone driving it, it’s great nostalgic value but that’s all really.
- mrunkel 6y agoI believe the comment you replied to was meant in jest.
- stedaniels 6y agoSurely there'd be value in attempting to reverse engineer the AI?
- Sosh101 6y agoThe sarcasm model alone would be worth a fortune.
- joosters 6y agoLet's not get carried away, it doesn't even have a steering wheel :)
- mhd 6y agoOr they could retrofit the existing AI with a state of the art one. "Super Pursuit Mode, KITT!" "Looking for Proper Fursuit Mods on www.cyberfurries4u.org, Michael"
- mrunkel 6y agoI don't understand this site. Are we pre-bidding for the car? The actual live auction will take place on the 23rd of January, so what would be the purpose of bidding now except to drive up the price ahead of time? > FULLY FUNCTIONAL K.I.T.T. CAR WITH FULL CONVE3RSION CAR LOCATED IN U.K. LOT WINNER RESPONSIBLE FOR DELIVERY EXPENSE, IF HAMMER PRICE EXCEEDS 25% ABOVE RESERVE PRICE, THE HOFF WILL PERSONALL DELIVER THE CAR TO THE NEW OWNER. How unprofessional is it to have so many typos and punctuation mistakes in one short blurb? The auction says it ships from Canoga Park, CA, the description says it's located in U.K. What is a buyer's premium?
- dcminter 6y agoThe buyer's premium is a fee (usually a fixed percentage on top of the auction price) paid by the buyer.
- dkdk8283 6y agoThe buyers premium in this case is 21%.
- bluedevil2k 6y agoThe buyer's premium on this is crazy high - typically they're 6% - 10%.
- technothrasher 6y ago> The auction says it ships from Canoga Park, CA, the description says it's located in U.K. Pictures are from a shop in London. I imagine contacting them might shed some light on it for an interested party. https://yiannimize.com/ https://yiannimize.com/ > What is a buyer's premium? Buyer additionally pays a percentage of their winning bid to the auction house. This is very common in auctions.
- 88 6y agoYiannimize is the business of a well known British Youtuber. The business is mostly known for car wrapping. See below a video Yianni made with this car back in 2016: https://youtu.be/FFgJT9H9z0o https://youtu.be/FFgJT9H9z0o Edit: It looks like this may be the current/previous owner: https://www.instagram.com/knightriderlondon/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/knightriderlondon/?hl=en
- mvanbaak 6y agoThis looks fake to me. Only some pictures of the inside of the car. Lots of spelling/grammer errors in the announcement. Is it USA or UK? Of course I can be wrong, but I dont buy it.
- brandall10 6y agoDid you miss the ones with David Hasselhoff inside of it?
- davegardner 6y agoDavid Hasselhoff is promoting it on Twitter so it is legitimate https://twitter.com/DavidHasselhoff/status/1345482654297313280 https://twitter.com/DavidHasselhoff/status/13454826542973132...
- MegaDeKay 6y ago"IF HAMMER PRICE EXCEEDS 25% ABOVE RESERVE PRICE, THE HOFF WILL PERSONALL DELIVER THE CAR TO THE NEW OWNER." Capitalized per the original article. OMG Capitalized because this would be awesome.
- cgriswald 6y agoWhat is legitimate, though? If Hasselhoff picks up a converted Trans Am it’s his personal KITT car, but doesn’t otherwise have any other relationship to the show. There’s no indication this is the car from the show nor is there an indication as to how long Hasselhoff had owned the car. Arguably he needn’t even be the owner; it could be “DAVIDS PERSONAL” simply by virtue of the personal delivery by Hasselhoff of the price is high enough.
- GekkePrutser 6y agoHe seems to be selling lots of stuff though. But yeah the description and the photos are pretty sparse for something that'll fetch about half a million.
- amelius 6y agoI suspect this will be bought by Waymo or another autonomous driving company, for PR.
- motohagiography 6y agoThat's genius. It's more than PR, it's an organic user experience with mainstream familiarity for hundreds of millions of people. If I were at a large car company, this is easily worth the price of 2-3 engineers. As a product manager, I would use the popular understanding of KITT as a reference early-adopter customer experience, not to replicate, but as a median. KITT's dashboard instrumentation is amazing (and oddly seems to have a synth ASD envelope if you look closely), which seems hilarious, but the point is to be a sophisticated command console for powerful operations, which is what it looks like. Totally different from the disconnected infotainment web pages of today. The entire car UX today is about permission, approval, safety, and comfort, like a kind of suburban living room in a display case. Whereas what the KITT (and motorcycle) UX is about is measurement, instrumentation, and consequence. A KITT style UX may be the secret to getting self-driving car traction because almost nobody will believe autonomous land vehicles are safe, but they will believe they are powerful. I should do a self-driving car startup.
- intrepidhero 6y agoI love the "powerful" retro sci-fi look but let's be honest about KITT, this UX is (unsurprisingly) terrible. All those glowy bar-graphs that line up perfectly are hard to differentiate and flat out inappropriate for some measurements. There is way more information presented than needed, and it's not grouped into logical clusters at all. It looks super cool but it's a safety nightmare. The dashboard morphed a little during the show's run. KITT must have got an upgrade because the speedometer max went from 200 to 500 MPH. It's got a built in printer! I'm dying to know what "Propagation Delay HRS" is supposed to mean. And you know it's 80s because: no blue LEDs. https://knight-rider.fandom.com/wiki/K.I.T.T._(2000) https://knight-rider.fandom.com/wiki/K.I.T.T._(2000) https://www.deviantart.com/davemetlesits/art/Kitt-dash-S1-2-Revised-74115257 https://www.deviantart.com/davemetlesits/art/Kitt-dash-S1-2-... https://www.deviantart.com/davemetlesits/art/Knight-Rider-Kitt-dash-25153106 https://www.deviantart.com/davemetlesits/art/Knight-Rider-Ki...
- tass 6y agoThere’s at least one home reproduction of this, and based on a review it’s horrible to drive: https://youtu.be/V1WbvwQCTvU https://youtu.be/V1WbvwQCTvU I’d love to see a museum pick it up assuming it was used in the show’s production.
- mschaef 6y ago> and based on a review it’s horrible to drive: Not really a surprise. The design of the car is close to 40 years old, even before you take into account the age of the car itself and all the junk piled on for the purpose of looking good on screen.
- dharmab 6y agoMany cars of that era are still delightful to drive: https://youtu.be/6u8xlg-q5Xc?t=576 https://youtu.be/6u8xlg-q5Xc?t=576 https://youtu.be/v5whGoNQK6I?t=172 https://youtu.be/v5whGoNQK6I?t=172 A lack of safety regulation allowed for cars significantly lighter and simpler than what you can buy today. They're definitely not _fast_ cars, but they are _enjoyable_ cars. It's mostly the interior that ruins the KITT cars.
- Digory 6y ago>assuming it was used in the show’s production There are only two blurry photos of an old Hasselhoff in the car. I suspect someone has converted an old car, and agreed to pay Hasselhoff well for the privilege of putting his name on the title. It's like the home contractors who reluctantly sell "the builder's own dream home" every year.
- loudouncodes 6y agoFully functional? I have expectations...
- fnord77 6y agosurprised Tesla hasn't included a whimsical "KITT mode" in their cars' software. Maybe copyright issues.
- LoSboccacc 6y agowe just have to wait til 2087
- _nickwhite 6y agoI was surprised by the seemingly low price of this car: "Estimate $175,000 - $300,000" Jay Leno owns a replica of the Back to the Future DeLorean valued at $750,000. I think anyone would agree the DeLorean is way sexier than the Trans Am, but I would argue its place among pop culture is pretty high, probably higher than the auction asking price.
- cgriswald 6y agoI don’t see anything in the post that convinces me this isn’t replica as well (albeit one ostensibly owned by Hasselhoff).
- metalliqaz 6y agofrom what I remember, it is a replica... sorta. Made for promotion rather than for filming. There were several filming cars, and most were damaged for various reasons during the show. Also, most of those didn't have interiors. Interior shots were done in a different cockpit from the exterior shots, which were mostly stunt cars.
- agumonkey 6y agoI don't think any of them wins in terms of design appeal (that Pontiac is really really peculiar and peak in its own genre). Now I think that BtTF got 1) an already very excentric car (pontiac was mainstream) 2) hollywood seal of fame, TV is important but not as glam.
- tmpxgdqrcKFuG 6y ago> FULLY FUNCTIONAL With Turbo Boost and the molecular bonded shell that repels bullets and explosions?
- agumonkey 6y agoYou might have to buy Devon's truck and hire Bonnie for a while.
- weinzierl 6y agoHow do actors end up with expensive film props? It doesn't seem to be rare that actors and other people involved in movie production sell movie props. I always wondered how this works: Do they buy it from the production company or is it all courtesies?
- bluedevil2k 6y agoNot too many years ago all the props of movies and TV shows were simply destroyed when the TV show or movie ended. There was no "collector market". Since the items were worthless to the studios when filming was complete, actors were allowed to take what they wanted. This is why you rarely see items from the early days of movies (1920-1950) for sale, they were rarely saved. The movie posters from the movies in those days were some of the only items preserved, and those can command premium prices, even into the millions for a poster like "Metropolis". It also makes you appreciate the fact that the ruby slippers from "Wizard of Oz" were saved. (Source - the Hollywood ride in Disney Studios)
- GekkePrutser 6y agoYeah lots of stuff is just left to rot outside. Like that Enterprise Bridge (though it wasn't the one from the show but from the Vegas Experience)
- thrav 6y agoAfter a season or 2 — if it’s a hit — I bet it becomes pretty easy to negotiate ownership of items into your contract, since they can’t do the show without you anymore and it’s a relatively small price to pay. See Sex and the City wardrobe.
- jasonv 6y agoIf they end up as producers on the show, they can often just get it granted to them, or included in the promotion obligations that are part of their contracts.
- capableweb 6y agoA lot of people (probably not big time actors though, more like taking and no one says no) end up stealing props and smuggling them out from production, as otherwise they wouldn't be able to get anything from the production. At least from the few people I've visited who had props at home, 90% of the props were stolen by them on the last day of shootings.
- rootbear 6y agoI'm wondering how KITT feels about this. Did he and the Hoff have a spat, so Hoff is dumping him? So many questions...
- baxtr 6y agoIf you won the auction you could ask KITT exactly that...
- fiftyacorn 6y agoAre they certain it's KITT? There was a baddie version of KITT for a while called KATT
- coleca 6y agoI thought it was KARR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KARR_(Knight_Rider) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KARR_(Knight_Rider)?
- metalliqaz 6y agoKARR You get 10 demerits on your nerd card. Also KARR was white, not black.
- dredmorbius 6y agoOriginally black: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KPs5O5HXODE https://youtube.com/watch?v=KPs5O5HXODE A virtual twin of KITT (same prop set I believe). Later two-tone: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dYs_DkFIqx8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=dYs_DkFIqx8
- GNOMES 6y agoI see they are selling other Hoff items, but still question why not sell the car on a more automotive focused site like Bring a Trailer
- 5555624 6y agoProbably because as a car, it's not worth as much. I think this is the sort of thing that would appeal to a memorabilia collector, rather than a car collector. If I was selling the Batmobile, from either the movies or the TV series, I would not think of selling it a car auction.
- slowhand09 6y agoIn other news... Kung Fury 2 https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/12/david-hasselhoff-kung-fury-2-update/ https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/12/david-hasselhoff-kung...
- metalliqaz 6y agoKung Fury was amazing. But after years of Vaporwave, /r/outrun, and all that, not sure that formula will land in the same way.
- agumonkey 6y agoJust like many sequels of this kind, it had to happen anyway. Just to finish the (new) wave.