Where is Michael Long's Trans Am? Was it Converted into KITT? A Knight Rider Mystery Deep Dive!

[Music] so is there some secret knight rider historians fan page where you guys get together and decide what you want to see next on the channel and then all of the members of this secret fan society page bombard us with requests for the same thing if so cool lately we've been getting a lot of requests for a video on michael long's trans am from the pilot where did it come from what happened to it after the pilot was it turned into kit today we will do what we do best in regards to this car way over analyze it more than any human ever should so stick around or don't i mean do you really have anything better to do well is webster on if webster's on i should probably go too okay [Music] in order to paint the proper picture we must first discuss the timeline of events surrounding the pilot starting with the first friday in april of 1982 april 2nd to be precise glen a larson series creator and writer of the pilot needed some brand new trans ams in order to film his 15-minute sizzle reel officially called a pilot presentation to show to nbc executives in new york in hopes that they would order it to a series larson went to the vista group a product placement firm founded in the 1970s that focused on placing vehicles in movies television shows and other high visibility special events now if you've been a follower of this channel for a while we've talked about vista group quite a bit larson knew the guys at vista group for years and knew that they would be the ones to make it happen after some meetings phone calls and creative shuffling of dealer delivery schedules they were able to secure three brand new black 1982 pontiac trans ams for the show on that april 2nd of 1982 two guys from vista group along with harker wade a producer on the pilot and friend of larson's went down to the general motors van nuys production plant and each left with a trans am two of those cars went to car customizer john ward to configure the outside to look like kit well at least to look like the kit that was originally envisioned by larson you know with the stock looking front nose front ground effects the third driver went to michael chaffey's shop so that he could begin the interior design construction and installation chaffey and ward had exactly three weeks to finish their respective projects as the filming of the pilot was to commence on friday april 23rd 1982 and last through the weekend all hands were on deck that weekend to include series star david hasselhoff to film the scenes that were to be presented to nbc to hopefully green light the series the pilot presentation was shown to nbc executives on april 26 1982 and by april 29th three days later newspapers of the day were already reporting that the show was to premiere that fall clearly the pilot presentation that larson put together was a hit nbc executives bought it immediately hey you yeah you with the eyeballs are you subscribed to our channel well you should be every time a subscribe button and bell are clicked a crime fighter gets his red turtleneck with the series entering production in early july of 1982 that left the crew about 10 weeks to prepare and film the full pilot episode in order to save money and time many of the scenes filmed for the pilot presentation were spliced into the final broadcast version the crew's main focus when full production started in july of 1982 was to film the rest of the episode some of those scenes they needed to film included the opening at the casino and the ensuing car chase into the desert between michael long played by larry anderson and lonnie played by sean southwick in order to film these scenes they needed a completely stock trans am but there was one problem the three cars already allotted to the show had all been for lack of a better term kitified where were they going to get a stock ta to film these brief but important scenes with pontiac's gravy train no longer an option meaning they weren't going to get any more free cars universal studios most likely went to a local dealership and purchased one that dealership would have probably been bob room and pontiac the same dealership that universal would purchase another knight rider trans am from later in season one and also a stone's throw away from universal studios now we don't have any cold hard facts around the acquisition of this fourth car but our theory makes sense with the series greenlit the studio could devote additional money to securing another car this stock trans am was brought in to film the scenes with larry anderson as michael long and phyllis davis as tonya walker well almost completely stock trans am take a closer look at the ta used in those scenes and you'll see that the red pontiac emblems on the hubcaps are not there perhaps foreshadowing this car's fate so what happened to this car after they finished filming the scenes with it in a stock configuration well as our theory goes it was owned by the studio so it was later converted into another kit car remember the pilot presentation was filmed with three cars but the full pilot has four distinct kit cars in it the hero car the backup to the hero car the general purpose stunt car and the roll caged acrylic window jump car this michael long stock trans am was converted we believe into the general purpose stunt car used for the majority of season one unfortunately it was destroyed before the end of the season and no longer exists so all you guys who pummeled our inbox with video requests on this car i hope this satisfies your curiosity please keep the suggestions coming what should we dive into next the origins of michael's hamburger and how it came from a cow that was a direct descendant of one of the o'leary cows which caused the great chicago fire of 1871 as always thanks for watching we'll catch you next time and now while we listen to joe's selection of night rider music that we receive directly from don peek himself we'd like to thank these patreon supporters look at you guys scrolling up the screen to my right wait a minute how can you tell which side is my right since you can't see me because i'm not on camera oh well you know what i mean we're featuring these fine supporters at our knight rider prop restorer level thank you very much for your support and for those of you at the knight rider history hunter level we're recognizing you right now in the description now if you enjoyed seeing this golden nugget of knight rider history being rescued from obscurity then please consider supporting us on patreon your support would empower us to bring you even more of these historical nuggets we are the night rider historians till next time take care everybody bye

Channel: Knight Rider Historians Official

Views: 73,130

Keywords: night rider, knight rider, kitt, nbc, trans am, david hasselhoff, pilot, behind the scenes

Id: rshI2Z3SNNo

Length: 8min 24sec (504 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 27 2022