A 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am dressed up as KITT, stolen in the 1990s and recovered by Interpol, is heading to the block at Broad Arrow Auctions in Zürich on November 7. The estimate sits between CHF 250,000 and CHF 500,000, or roughly $302,000 to $605,000.
For that kind of money, you get 165 horsepower, a three-speed automatic, and a car that never appeared on a single frame of the actual “Knight Rider” TV series.
What it does have is provenance tied to David Hasselhoff. Documentation shows the Hoff used this specific replica to promote his 1985 Night Rocker album during concerts and television appearances across Europe. The car was converted to KITT specification during the 1980s by Hollywood Productions using original Universal Pictures plans, according to the auction house.
The build includes the signature red scanner bar in the extended nose cone and blacked-out taillight lenses. Inside, the cabin is loaded with period-correct LED displays, toggle switches of questionable alignment, and that distinctive yoke steering wheel. It looks the part. It just doesn’t perform it.
Under the hood sits the same wheezy 305 cubic-inch V8 that Pontiac bolted into every base Trans Am that year. Turbo boost? Try sub-nine-second 0-to-60 times. The Cross-Fire injection system was GM’s answer to a question nobody was asking, and the mandatory slushbox made sure the driving experience stayed firmly ordinary.
After Hasselhoff moved on, the car landed with a Swiss record label. Then it vanished. Sometime in the 1990s, the Trans Am was stolen, and it took Interpol to get it back.
The auction listing is thin on details about the theft and recovery, which only adds to the mythology that Broad Arrow is clearly banking on.
The car came back missing some of its bespoke KITT dashboard electronics. Those have since been replaced, and the interior now features a voice box, dual monitors, an overhead console, and an illuminated accelerator pedal. Whether any of it actually works in any meaningful way is another question.
The asking price looks steep for a replica with peeling paint and a crime history, but the market for Hasselhoff-adjacent KITT cars has proven surprisingly deep. A different KITT replica owned by the actor sold for $300,000 back in 2021. The handful of genuine screen-used cars that still exist command even more, though they rarely come up.
Hasselhoff’s dual fame as both an American TV star and a European rock phenomenon creates a strange Venn diagram of collectors. Continental Europeans never stopped loving the man. And a car he actually used on tour, one that was then stolen and rescued by an international police agency, reads like a treatment for a “Knight Rider” episode that was too ridiculous to produce.
Broad Arrow is betting that nostalgia, celebrity provenance, and a wild backstory can paper over the reality of a slow, tired, 44-year-old Pontiac with reproduction electronics and a rough cosmetic presentation. Given how collector car auctions have been leaning lately, they might not be wrong.
The hammer falls November 7 in Zürich, where the Hoff still sells.
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