A museum in Illinois opened its mail recently to find a $50 speeding ticket from the New York City Department of Finance. The vehicle in question was allegedly caught doing 11 miles per hour over the limit in a school zone. That vehicle was KITT, the legendary talking car from Knight Rider, one of the most iconic automobiles in television history. The only problem, as the Volo Museum in Illinois was quick to point out, is that the car hasn't moved in years.
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The Car Behind the Legend
In the summer of 1982, a sleek black car with a glowing red scanner bar rolled onto American television screens. KITT — short for Knight Industries Two Thousand — was built on a 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, using the car's low, wedge-shaped nose and hatchback coupe body as its base. The interior and distinctive nose design were the work of designer Michael Scheffe, with the iconic red scanner strip inspired by HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Each car cost approximately $100,000 to build. Of the roughly 19 cars used across the show's four seasons, 14 were destroyed during or after production. Just five survived, with at least one of the most-used movie-car examples reportedly valued at $5 million. The Volo Museum's car is not one of those five. It was built in 1991 by Mark Scricani of Marks Custom Kits using original production designs, and later became part of the George Barris Star Car Collection, autographed by Barris himself.
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When the Algorithm Gets It Wrong
According to a CBS News report, museum officials believe the camera system matched a novelty plate from a passing vehicle to their famous Firebird — an easy mistake for a machine scanning thousands of plates a day, but a pretty embarrassing one. AI-powered traffic cameras have been expanding rapidly across American cities, promising speed and scale. The NYC Department of Finance says it is looking into the matter. The museum has since requested a hearing, and joked that David Hasselhoff owes them fifty bucks.
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