It’s a mystery on the streets of New York City. What traffic law violator with unpaid fines is driving a black Pontiac Trans Am that looks like the car with the talking computer from the 1980s TV series “Knight Rider,” and even has the same license plate?
Officials at an Illinois museum are among the people who would like to know. The Volo Museum near Chicago, which has a replica of the show’s Trans Am that hasn’t moved from its exhibit in years, recently received a $50 traffic ticket from the Big Apple, alleging its car was doing 36 mph (59 kph) in a 25 mph (40 kph) zone in Brooklyn on April 22.
The ticket came complete with traffic camera photos showing a black Trans Am with the California license plate KNIGHT, the same plate as the car on the show and the novelty one on the museum’s unregistered car. The license plate is also connected to five other unpaid traffic violations in New York City since late 2024, city records show.
How the city linked the plate to the museum was not immediately clear. City officials did not immediately respond to email and phone messages Wednesday.
“The fact that we’re legally tied to a movie prop is interesting,” said Jim Wojdyla, the museum’s marketing director. “We’re known for having our Hollywood cars from TV and movies, but I have no idea how we got registered from a ticket in New York to the plates in California to the Volo Museum in Illinois. We’re still trying to figure it out.”
The museum has requested a hearing challenging the ticket.
“It’s really amusing,” Wojdyla said. “We want to find out who this Knight Rider guy is because, birds of a feather. We just want to know is this from a museum, is this just a guy that built this car as a hobby? And it looks pretty damn accurate. We’d like to meet those guys.”
“Knight Rider” starring David Hasselhoff as a crime fighter aired on NBC from 1982 to 1986 and featured KITT, the black Trans Am with a snarky talking computer. (KITT stands for Knight Industries Two Thousand). Around 20 KITTS were built for the show but only five of the originals remain, Road & Track magazine has reported.
There are also numerous replicas around, including the museum’s. The Facebook group Knight Rider KITT Car Club for people who own replicas has nearly 19,000 members.
According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, a person with the last name Knight renewed their registration for the state plate KNIGHT in March.
New York City is authorized by state law to operate up to 750 cameras with speed detectors. When a camera catches a speeder, it records photos of the vehicle and its license plate. Staff at the city’s Department of Transportation review the violations and mail tickets to the vehicle owners if the vehicles were going more than 10 mph (16 kph) over the speed limit, the city’s website says.
The Volo Museum is having fun with the ticket trouble on its social media sites. It recently changed its header on its Facebook page to “Home of the Knight Rider KITT that famously got a speeding ticket in New York City without ever leaving its exhibit in Illinois!”
“Does anyone have Hasselhoff’s number? He owes us $50!!!!” one of its posts says.