Knight Rider Shelby GT 500 - Snake KITT

For the six KITT cars, Ted's team of 20 technicians toiled for two and a half weeks, most of it around the clock. Again, the producer's and Ford's legal departments had consumed all of the time, leaving the hands-on work to the harried techs. "We were exhausted after that," Ted says.

In addition to long hours, dogged aggressiveness is also required. Above all, the Shelby's KR hood was required right away. However, there was one KR hood in the world at that time, and it was bolted to the KR show car that Shelby was putting in front of eyeballs and camera lenses. To make matters worse, KITT production took place during the '07 SEMA show, so parts were impossible to get as the aftermarket car world was hob-nobbing in Las Vegas. Ultimately, Ted drove to Las Vegas so he could track down Shelby personnel at SEMA and arrange to borrow the KR hood, along with other parts.

The KR hood got as far as Palm Springs through Shelby, where a Picture Car Warehouse driver took over. It went straight to the PCW's fiberglass department, where it was splashed, and "six or seven copies were made." The original was trucked back to Shelby and the game continued. "I didn't even see the Shelby hood," Ted explains. He was too busy with other parts of the KITT build.

Filming followed immediately, with PCW dealing with the inevitable damage. "We had two stunt cars," says Ted. "They wrecked one on the set and brought it to me at around noon. It had hit a tree and was totaled; it bent the right rear axle back several inches and ripped the right rear control arm right out." Ted and crew had the car ready for on-camera action and delivered by the next morning.

The news that one Attack and one Hero TV movie car had been auctioned at Barrett-Jackson's Palm Beach event for $300,000 had just been released when we talked to Ted, which was followed instantly by the good news that NBC was going with a weekly Knight Rider series. We thought it unusual that the TV cars would be sold just when needed for weeks of additional shooting, but Ted brushed it off. "We'll build new cars; [the auction] was just Ford trying to get more promo."

Like Harald, who Ted has worked with many times before, Ted was definitely happy to be thrashing on KITT Mustangs. "KITT was a great project, great dealing with Ford. We're really proud of what we built. And when they sell for $300,000, I guess we did OK."

The KITT Hero standing studly in these pages isn't one of the TV movie cars. It's actually the final car built as part of the TV pilot program-call it the seventh KITT Mustang. Assembled by Galpin Auto Sports, it's the only KITT built off of an honest-to-Henry Shelby GT 500 and packs far more punch than the showy-but-standard-performance on-screen cars. It was used for a handful of promotional photography and articles such as this, more promotional work, and then the glue factory. Man, the budgets are huge in TV land.

Jesse Kershaw at Ford Racing talked us through our KITT's list of Ford Racing Performance Parts. To get things moving, 3.73 gears went into the rear axle, and for more power, the '07-'09 Mustang SVT Power Pack of a cold-air kit, stainless mufflers, and computer recalibration was slipped in place by the Galpin techs. Ford Blue valve covers from the Ford GT provide some underhood dress-up.

Chassis-wise, the main attraction is an '07-'09 Mustang SVT Handling Pack. Besides the expected spring, bar, and shock package, it includes adjustable shocks specific for this car; the production Shelby KRs make do with nonadjustable shocks. With an eye toward road-course work, Ford Racing's brake-cooling kit went on, and an FRPP short-throw shifter finishes off the factory hot-rod parts.

The hood is the only KITT-specific piece. Our car sported one of the ill-fitting fiberglass KITT hoods The Picture Car Warehouse hurriedly splashed from the KR prototype engine lid. It's good enough for the small screen in mainly night shots, but it was no doubt replaced by a carbon-fiber production KR hood sometime after our photo session. Galpin, of course, installed production KR bits, but the subtle matte stripes were outsourced.

If our test car didn't have any screen credits, it did have one outstanding and unique specification: a manual transmission. It's the only KITT Mustang so equipped, and it was our pleasure to run through a few gears during our photo shoot. Pedaling the car at a police training facility, we were thrilled with the KR's-er, KITT's-ample thrust and greatly improved handling.