What Did Goliath Look Like BEFORE Knight Rider? + More Clues to Help us Track Down This Behemoth!

[Music] so when you think of the semis used in Night Rider a lot of you guys are going to think of the flag semi as number one right after all this was a staple in the show for all four seasons but if I asked you what's the number two semi that you think of when you think of Night Rider what are you going to say I'm betting you're going to say Goliath right the giant Peterbilt 352 piloted by gar Knight in two of the best Night Rider episodes Goliath and Goliath returns so you know we found the flag semi and naturally so many of you guys are saying well where's Goliath did you find Goliath yet and um the answer is no we have not found Goliath yet and we did a video oh maybe a year ago on um kind of where is Goliath and we laid out everything we knew about the the uh tractor and and um a lot of you guys really responded to that it was a pretty neat video but um we wanted to do an update to that video because um since that time we've gathered a lot more information about Goliath and in that video we focus only on the tractor but in this video we're going to focus both on the tractor and the trailer because obviously what's Goliath if you what's you know if you have the tractor you need the trailer also kind of like the flag semi So today we're going to lay out everything we know about Goliath and the trailer to um include some corrections from our last video that you guys um reached out to us and said you know that that detail that you mentioned before that's not right this is actually what it is so thanks to you guys we have an excellent idea of pretty much the exact year that Goliath was and something really really cool we've actually been contacted by the family that leased the truck that became Goliath to Universal Studios this family provided a behindth scenes photo of Goliath and a picture of the Peterbuilt 352 before it was converted into Goliath so you were going to see Goliath before he was Goliath [Music] w all right so I want to start this analysis not with the Goliath tractor but rather with the trailer now we've never really focused on Goliath's trailer but let's face it if we're going to find out what happened to Goliath we need to find out what happened to the trailer as well as the tractor so for this first segment let's go through some screenshots including the trailer's use in an episode of Airwolf and let's see if we can um show you some of the things that makes this trailer unique in the hopes that someone out there can at least identify the manufacturer of it now with the Night Rider trailer we had a giant red dorsy emblem at the top so that made it very easy this one is a little bit trickier so follow along especially if you're familiar with uh tractor trailers from this era late 7s early 80s and maybe you can help us I identify not only the model or the the make of the trailer but also maybe kind of a general range of production year all right so here we go all right so we're going to start at the back because this is the first screenshot I have so this is the back of the trailer now it's got these uh I guess these are what double locks on there I don't is there any um anything any other reason why they would have these uh double locks on the back other than just extra security maybe you guys know but to me it just looks like they're double double locks on the back we've got um the tail lights here that are surrounded uh by what looks like a a metal bezel um probably to protect the tail lights I would imagine when they're backing up maybe for unloading cargo that would be my guess I know the dorsy trailers this was an option the Night Rider trailer didn't have this but I know some dorsy trailers of the era had um this protection around the tail lights um and I'd imagine this bar here is to protect the uh Hardware of the door all right so here's a decent look at the front of the trailer so what do we see um you know interestingly it's angled you know this this design up here looks very similar to a dorsy um with the way the corners are angled and and whatnot but um again maybe it is I don't know but actually you know what now that I'm talking look at this can you guys see this hole there and hole there um right there that almost that's probably where the emblem was for the trailer can you just see it it's so faint there was there's definitely holes there for where the uh the emblem was so maybe I don't know maybe this was a dorsy but um these look like the guides for the wires um to to feed the marker lights at the top it looks like they come up here and then maybe go across here and then they run across the header of the truck one on the driver's side one on the passenger side you can see rivets across here boy this does this you know I'm sure the design of a lot of this stuff is um similar from one manufacturer to another but that sure kind of looks like dorsy stuff all right so here's what might be the most revealing picture of the front of the trailer and for those of you guys out there who know trailers tractor trailers this might be what identifies it so what are we looking at here um obviously we've got our our Airline connect connections and our electrical here in a recess box in the center of the front of the trailer and these are um conduit for the wires to go up to the marker lights um but then we also have this right here which is recess now this looks like the same registration type holder that um the Night Rider trailer had now it wasn't it wasn't recessed into the front it was just mounted on the front here but this looks like the exact same style box it's upside down and there's uh two Wing nuts on each side you open them and then pull it out and that's where you keep your registration paperwork for the trailer um but other than that I don't see anything uh you know too revealing here but maybe this this design here will um spark someone's memory as to you know what kind of trailer this is and one um clue that it might not be a dorsy is I believe the dorsy serial number plates were always in this this front corner of the uh trailers and I don't even see a place I can't imagine they would remove the zal number plate for this trailer at anything they'd paint over it but I don't even see evidence of anything mounted here or really anywhere in the front so that makes me think that maybe it's not a dorsy and the serial number plate would be somewhere else just a guess and one more view here again you can't really see too much kind of gives you a view of the upper part of Goliath here of the trailer um yeah there's those wire guides you got your rivets across the top again probably very standard fair for uh trailers all right so you don't see too much here but take a look at the rivet patterns of the uh trailer here again maybe that'll see what else we have here all right so let's take a look here you can see the rear quarter of the trailer um yeah we've got these angled pieces here again very similar to dorsy but this um frame underneath does not look dorsy with all these holes in it um and then looks like there's something right across here some I don't know if that's a reinforcement or repair see this right across here um again might be a clue all right so with the Night Rider trailer the actual flag trailer obviously there were so many modifications done to the trailer that it was easily a dead giveaway once you know once we found it that um we were able to match up these modifications with this trailer it's a little bit different because there weren't nearly as many modifications right but there was at least one modification that would be a dead giveaway should we find this trailer um do you remember this scene from Goliath where they break into Red Bluff and they have a crane that comes out of the back of the trailer you can see the support for the crane right here um as far as I can tell this was actually a structure built into the back of the trailer with a working crane right cuz you see in the episode they lift these missiles and actually put it in the back of the trailer now this NE not necessarily would be you know obviously this is a modification um to the trailer uh but there's a mod ification based on this that you can see on the outside of the trailer that um would most likely definitely still be there today if the trailer does still exist let me show you all right you can see the modification made to the trailer in this screenshot specifically for that um that crane apparatus that they put in the back of the trailer so can you see the modification I bet you can't I'll give you a minute look right up here do you see this thing right here obviously you got the one of the exhaust pipes for the tractor see this right here that is one of four bolts with a metal backing plate that they drilled into the front of this trailer for part of that um that crane apparatus that they put in inside the trailer now you can't see the other bolts in this screenshot um but they are there and what's interesting is you know you look at um earlier in the episode and those bolts are not here um and that's because they film most of the episode and then they outfitted the trailer with the crane so so here let's Jump Ahead to Goliath returns and you get a really good look at those bolts and the backing plates what's interesting thing is this is the same design that the studio used on the flag semi to hold the winch pulley in place on the side of the flag trailer they had bolts with these metal backing plates behind them so you know obviously the same people that did the trailer The Night Rider flag trailer did this trailer as well but and obviously they didn't even care that these were not straight in by any stretch of the imagination right so this obviously would be a dead giveaway if there are four holes here dead giveaway way that we've got the right trailer all right one more look at the back of the trailer and we can also see that this step up here um this has been welded closed this was an opening here in the middle and they took a metal plate here and welded it in to maybe give it a closed off more finished look but other than that I think the back of this trailer is pretty much stock all right take a look at this from near the end of Goliath returns so we've got the back of the trailer but notice how the bars they've removed these bars right here the mounting hardware is still there but these bars have been completely removed but the lock box that we see in in Goliath in the first Goliath episode is still here also interesting to note is this right here in that earlier scene I just showed you where Dr beram was climbing into the back of the trailer this um hitch was not here and I'm not sure that this thing was here either whatever that is so um I think they added this possibly for this upcoming scene where um you see kit being towed here let me show you where you see uh right here so I think they hooked the trans well I know that they hooked the TransAm to the back of the trailer and I think they hooked it using this um this hitch here so this would be another modification or at least the remnants of um a hitch being welded onto this bar that might be giveaway for this trailer but um yeah still need to figure out first who is the manufacturer of this trailer also pay attention to the hinges here maybe those are some kind of a giveaway yeah and there we go one last shot uh kind of zoomed in here you get a better look at almost look like a knob like a kitchen uh drawer handle but yeah there's a better look at those hinges as well so if you guys know the main manufacturer of this trailer maybe a year range even a model number anything um throw it in the comments down below or email us at nightwriter historians gmail.com we'd love to um at least be able to start our uh search for for this trailer if it's still out there a lot of you guys said the flag trailer wasn't still out there but we proved you wrong so maybe this one is too all right now it is time to focus on the tractor all right so before we move over to examining the tractor let's take one more look at the trailer here it's used in an episode of Airwolf in fact one of the First episodes of Airwolf called Daddy's Gone to hunting and you can see here that they don't use the tractor only the trailer but um this episode was aired January 28th of 1984 so just to put that in perspective Goliath returns was aired February of 198 84 so really this trailer was being used on Airwolf immediately before or immediately after the filming of Goliath returns which is part of the reason why you know it still is gray and looks just like uh Goliath's trailer now obviously they added you know this uh satellite dish the the uh structure underneath and these other pieces here to simulate this uh I guess you could say a mobile command center and we never really get a good look at too much of the trailer here we can see that um we've got a set of stairs they put on the back to climb in I don't know where the swing actually I know what's going on here the the driver side swing door's probably closed the passenger one is probably open and swung all the way to the um passenger side so you can't see it and then they put these stairs in to climb in and out of the trailer but clearly this is the exact same trailer in fact um I'm sure we could even match up like this Dent here if we wanted to and um that frame with the holes underneath the um panel that they welded shut here in the back um which we mentioned a few minutes ago in the uh trailer commentary from Goliath returns so all those details this is definitely the Goliath trailer and there's one more shot here um again you can't see too many details but uh like I said it hasn't it wasn't used too much um in this episode so really these are the only scenes you can see now some people have said well the trailer was blown up in this episode um by Airwolf but actually it wasn't if you uh watch this episode this is a scene from supposedly inside of Airwolf as they're flying over it there is one scene where Airwolf shoots some missiles and you do see an explosion but what you're seeing explode is the dish on top not the actual trailer so I firmly believe that this trailer survived the filming of Airwolf the question is what happened to it after um Airwolf and after Goliath returns so with all that being said let's find out at least what the manufacturer is of this trailer and maybe even a year range that would be a great start to helping us maybe figure out what happened to this trailer all right so now let's talk again about the tractor so some of you guys might have watched our previous video um about trying to find Goliath and we focused specifically on the tractor itself and in that video at the time I made um you know I did some analysis and some of that analysis was correct and some was incorrect and thankfully you guys out there especially some of you who are more knowledgeable about these Peterbilt um cabovers than I am um message me put comments in the uh in the video saying um you know that's you know that's not a 1973 or that uh rip in the weather stripping is supposed to be there things like that so let's kind of go over some of the incorrect assumptions I made and we'll correct them on the record here so the first one that I wanted to correct is I believe in that video I said it was like a 1973 Peterbuilt and that is definitely incorrect I received like I said a number of messages um but one person's message stood out um as being extremely knowledgeable and uh definitely was able to lead me in the right direction Tim albor sent me a message and I'm going to call him out because this is an absolutely fantastic reply and explanation as to why this is not a 1973 model so I'm going to read to you kind of what he said and as he's uh as we're going through what he said I'll show you some visual aids to kind of match to that so he says good morning I was sent a link to your video of Goliath and have some information studying the photos of Goliath it is not a 1973 the truck has low Mount door handles which went into production in late year 1975 but all not all had this low door release handle as Peterbilt did not use Hard cutover dates for featur changes so this is what he's talking about right here this handle how it's mounted low um on earlier trucks I believe it was mounted up here so that's one giveaway that's not a 73 all right he goes on to say the 352 was built in two factories Newark California and Nashville Tennessee both are now closed incidentally um the serial number for the uh tractor they didn't have vins back then you know your common 17-digit vins they had serial numbers um so the serial number would end with either a p or if it was made in Newark California or an N if it was made in the Nashville Factory So based on some information I'm going to share with you a little bit later in this video pretty sure that the serial number should end in p for New York California all right so Tim goes on to say the backwards s grab handle which is this thing right here this backwards s grab handle debuted in 1974 but wasn't offered until 1975 and became the standard grab handle on the 110 in cab in 1976 this is by the way the 110 in cab with the the double doors underneath the sleeper area sleepers here and then these are the two storage areas underneath um they also made a version which I I think I showed some pictures in our previous Goliath video a a shorter um cab that only had one door underneath so but this is I guess you could say the Deluxe Cab version the biggest one that they offered all right so moving on Goliath shows a rounded top battery box cover which is this right here see how the top is rounded on this battery box right here and two air tanks right here the two air tanks under the box these were changes made in the 1975 production and um incidentally Tim also says that this 110in cab um debuted in 1972 and was um available until the end of the Peterbuilt 352 uh production which was in 1980 all right and and uh I talked briefly about this tear in the weather stripping right here that I thought was a defect well it's not a defect um it isn't tear a tear or any type of wear that is how the weather stripping is designed so that it clears the door latch this door latch right here there we go that door latch which I guess I should have caught um that makes sense so that weather stripping that's not a clue that this is Goliath by any means now this is this this 352 used in mouth of the snake a couple episodes after Goliath returns 100% is the same tractor but that was not one of the giveaways if you are interested in hearing more about um why we think that this or why we know that this Peterbilt 352 from mouth of the snake is the same one that we saw in Goliath returns be sure to check out our first video on Goliath that we did last year there's a link up in the corner of the video or down in the video description all right continuing on with uh Tim's analysis the air cleaner intake on the right side of the cab right up here was a standard feature of Peterbuilt cabovers but in 1978 this feature was eliminated from the cab and moved to a rack mount beside the right side Muffler so it would be back here so that definitely tells us that this cab is um not 1978 or newer all right so if you're following along I know it's kind of confusing originally we said this was a 1973 um through Tim's email to this point he's already proven that this cab is somewhere between 1975 in 1978 so continuing on you'll see how we'll be able to um narrow that down a little bit more all right so next up the interior um the uh interior padding is What's called the classic kit interior available in red black brown green and dark blue um this style of padding with the long Stitch seams I'm assuming he means these ones on the door panel these long Stitch seams was replaced in 1977 with classic 2 which had a different pattern so right there we've we've eliminated you know our range was 1975 1978 now he says that this feature was replaced in 1977 which tells us that this would be pre1 1977 so now we're at like the 1975 197 6 range for this uh tractor all right so finishing up um Tim went on to say a couple specific options that he saw on this uh Goliath tractor the wheelbase is a bit longer than the typical 352 and the smaller 100gal size fuel tanks the wheels that are on Goliath are steel and not commonly seen on a uh 352 that has all the options that this truck had usually would have polished 10 hole Alcoa Aluminum rims um on the front axle which would be more common interestingly um that's the Alcoa rims I believe he's referring to are the same ones that were on the season 3 and four flag tractor the GMC General that we have okay so all of that to say Tim summarizes his email and saying um he believes and he sure sounds like an expert to me that Goliath is a late 1976 to a late 1977 Peterbilt 352 110 110 being the 110 in cab all right so if you've stuck with me this long thank you I know that's a lot of detail regarding the trailer and the tractor but now it's going to pay off your diligent watching we were contacted by the family that supplied the Peterbilt 352 to night rider in the summer of 1983 to film Goliath now unfortunately they have not found the serial number of Goliath yet but they did provide two very important pieces of Photography and some important um information regarding how Goliath got um into the hands of universal from this private owner and those two pieces of Photography are a behind thescene shot of Goliath outside of Las Vegas in the desert when they're filming and even more excitingly for us at least a picture of the truck before it was converted into Goliath so you were going to get to see for the first time what goliath looked like before it was goath tized how's that for a word all right so let's get back to our computer and we're going to show you this really cool stuff and tell you a little bit about the story of how this Peter Built got to be Goliath all right here you go here is the first picture this was taken by the owners of the Peter Built you see here on the set of Goliath I believe this is the genan roach dry lake bed outside of Las Vegas when they're filming a lot of the uh the climax of the episode of of the original Goliath and this photo was dated on the back of August of 1983 which absolutely lines up so here's the story of how this Peter Built got onto the set of Night Rider and became Goliath the truck was purchased Brand New by a gentleman in Seattle Washington and purchased by this family that provided it to Universal Studios this family was a friend of the original owner so back earlier whenever I said that I suspect that um this Peterbilt was built in that Norwalk California Assembly Plant and not Nashville Tennessee the reason I suspect that is because the truck was purchased new in Seattle Washington so chances are it was built on the west coast since it kind of um since it was sold new on the west coast and pretty much lived on the west coast so once it was purchased by this family from the original owner um they brought it down to Los Angeles from Seattle and that's where this truck lived for um for many years so one day this family was contacted by someone who sourced vehicles for Universal Studios they were looking for a specific truck with a specific sleeper configuration and at the time there were only a few registered in California that fit the bill that's how they ended up contacting this this family so a contract was drawn up between Universal Studios and this family saying that the truck would be returned in the original condition or the studio could purchase could choose to purchase the truck so obviously um the studio made a number of modifications to the truck they replaced uh the original rims they painted the whole thing they put rockets on the roof not to mention the giant grill and bumper on the front all of this no doubt caused damage to the original cab right I'm sure they put tons of holes in that um tractor so the studio then decided to purchase the truck um not only because of that but also there was talk that they were going to do a sequel to Goliath which of course ended up being Goliath returns so originally the Peter boolt was leased to the studio but the studio ended up purchasing it from those those owners which explains why um they had it for mouth of the snake as well right it became part of the Universe Studios inventory so they could use use it um on other uh you know other shows other Productions paint it do whatever they wanted with it so chances are you know this truck was probably used in other Universal Studios Productions but they would all be after Goliath returns right um they wouldn't be because at that point the studio owned the truck so they could do whatever they want with it so um the the uh owners of this truck that ended up selling Universal had heard that the person who sourced the truck ended up purchasing it back from Universal Studios um now we talked to one of our um contacts who used to work at the studio who has intimate knowledge of the vehicles and the vehicle procurement process and all that stuff and he was unable to corroborate that piece of the story um or really any of the story because think about it this happened so long ago and no one ever thought that people crazy as us would be coming along decades later asking about this so it was probably just another vehicle another transaction and no one really thought much of it so it's you know it's hard to say what actually happened all right now with all that said I think it's time to show you this truck before it became Goliath when it was still privately owned by this family and here it is this is a picture of Goliath before he became Goliath so you can see here the original paint Scheme I'm pretty sure this is the original paint Scheme from Peterbilt is white with blue trim now one thing I want you to pay attention to which I thought was really cool oh and also you can see how this uh this tractor originally came with those Alcoa rims right that Tim was referencing and these are the same ones that are on the um flag semi tractor but look how the fuel tank and the battery box but especially this fuel tank you see how it's blue also so well once we saw this picture the first thing I did was to go back and look at screenshots to see if I could find any pictures of Goliath from the episodes where you can see any shades of blue take a look at this this is a scene from Goliath where we see the tractor being connected to the trailer right you can see Goliath is all painted gray but look at the inside of the fuel tank it is definitely blue so you know whenever we get emails like this we always like to find substantiating proof that what the person is telling us is true but they had a picture of Goliath that we had never seen before on the set and they showed us the preg Goliath picture with a blue tank and there's some blue from a screenshot this is 100% Goliath before he was Goliath and this whole story check out one interesting note two interesting notes actually first of all you see this front bumper here um now I'm not totally familiar with Peter builts but I'm assuming this was the bumper it left the factory with you got the two cutouts you got some driving lights here well obviously whenever the truck is Goliath that's all hidden but I suspect that original bumper is underneath this giant monstrosity of a bumper and in fact take a look at the screenshot from mouth of the snake and you'll see it has that same bumper so I think they just built the Goliath bumper over this bumper and that is the same bumper that you see right here all right one last thing I wanted to mention uh now that we've pretty much confirmed that the story we've been told um is true right we have enough circumstantial evidence um one of the other things that this family said and by the way I didn't mention this I forgot to mention this is we were contacted by the son of The Man Who provided the tractor to Universal unfortunately his father recently passed away so um we weren't able to talk to him directly but we're getting all this information in these pictures through his son which is absolutely wonderful we're incredibly grateful that he has taken the time to speak with us um but one of the stories that his son relayed to us that his dad told him at one point was before they gave the truck or leased the truck to Universal his dad was driving Goliath and before it was Goliath and hid an owl with it and the owl put a dent somewhere in this area now I think this picture was before that Al D cuz I don't see anything but somewhere below the driver windshield he says they hit an owl well I went back and of course I'm looking for an owl strike because he told me that whenever his father and him watched Goliath when it was originally aired they laughed because they could still see the owl Dent after they converted the truck to Goliath so I was looking at some screenshots and take a look at this it's very subtle but right here it looks like there is a dent probably from hitting that owl notice there's nothing here but right here doesn't that metal the way the light plays off of it it looks like it's dented in so I think that's an owl strike from before it was Goliath isn't that crazy absolutely crazy so all that to say we now know where Goliath came from but we still don't know where he went the tractor or the trailer all right that concludes our deep dive into Goliath part two now you know everything we know for the most part about Goliath the tractor Goliath the trailer and you know hopefully one of you guys out there contacts and say yeah I worked at the studio in the80s Goliath you know was sold off and it's sitting behind a barn in Pasadena I don't know there's probably no Barnes in Pasadena but you get my drift um you guys have worked miracle in the past I mean without you guys we would have never ever found the trailer without this channel without you guys watching so I'm hoping we can pull off yet another miracle and find Goliath that's all I've got for today thank you guys so much for spending some time with me hope you enjoy it and we will talk to you very very soon [Music] Hello friends it's me kit when I'm not out fighting crime I like to follow my friends at night riter historians. comom check it [Music] out [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music]

Channel: Knight Rider Historians Official

Views: 46,004

Keywords: knight rider, night rider, kitt, nbc, david hasselhoff, trans am, goliath, garthe knight, peterbilt, 352, pacemaker

Id: _eJcXu3Mzzo

Length: 39min 58sec (2398 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 30 2023