Butler County resident saves another iconic vehicle from TV's 'Knight Rider'

A Butler County man who owns one of the few remaining cars used as KITT in the 1980s television series “Knight Rider” now has another notable vehicle from the show.

Joe Huth, along with his partner and fellow “Knight Rider” historian AJ Palmgren, revealed this week they own one of the two GMC General tractors that portrayed the Foundation for Law and Government’s mobile unit on the show.

The mobile unit — a black tractor- trailer with gold trim and a knight chess piece on the trailer — was a rolling “home away from home” for the show’s characters, where KITT would get serviced and David Hasselhoff’s Michael Knight would be briefed on his latest mission.

“It’s an important part of the show,” said Huth, 39, who lives north of Butler and works for the federal government. “It was used in all four seasons. It was used in nearly every episode to further the plotline.”

The tractor-trailer also was known for the stunt of KITT driving into and out of while the truck was moving. Mythbusters confirmed it could be done.

A 1980 GMC General used in the first two seasons of “Knight Rider” is yet to be found, if it still exists.

Huth said they tracked the 1984 General used in the third and fourth seasons to an Idaho farm in 2016, and bought it from its owner in 2019.

They found it using the vehicle identification number. It was in data Huth said took Palmgren four years to recover from a 35-year-old, obsolete computer from Vista Group, a product placement firm that placed vehicles in movies and television shows. Its authenticity was confirmed by a Universal Studios tag still on it.

“Talk about your needle in a haystack,” Huth said. “It would have been absolutely impossible to find that truck if we didn’t have the VIN.”

Huth said they can’t run a nationwide search for the 1980 General because its VIN pre-dates the federal standard that started in 1981.

Now painted blue, the tractor no longer has the custom, fake sleeper added to it, and the trailer seen in the show was not with it.

Huth said they kept quiet about owning the tractor in hopes of finding the trailer without its owner jacking up the price. While two tractors were used in the show, there was only one trailer.

“It became evident we weren’t going to find the trailer. We exhausted all of our leads,” Huth said. “Then we thought, maybe it is to our benefit to get the word out there, to let the world know we have the cab to generate some leads.”

Huth said they know the studio gave the trailer to someone, who sold it in Southern California in the early-to-mid 2000s. It was painted white or silver but still had the special effects fold-down rear ramp.

Releasing a video about the truck on their YouTube channel has brought some clues about the trailer’s location, but most have turned out to be dead ends, Huth said.

“There is one possible lead we’re tracking down. We’ll see if that goes anywhere,” he said. “Hopefully one day we’ll find it. I’m hoping our video gets in front of the right set of eyes and someone can help us.”

According to Huth, after the 1984 General was used on Knight Rider and other productions, it was sent back to GMC and sold as a used truck.

Huth said the farmer in Idaho used it to haul produce, unaware of its Hollywood history until they told him.

“He never saw the show,” Huth said. “It didn’t really mean anything to him, which worked out well for us.”

Huth said the tractor is complete but deteriorated with 239,000 miles on it, which he said is actually low for such a rig.

The tractor is now with Palmgren in Iowa. Huth said it may come to him in Butler County for restoration beginning later this year. He said they will try to save the original black paint, now hidden under layers of blue and red.

“For us it’s not about making it look pristine,” he said. “We’d rather have the original paint job and have flaws in it.”

Huth said he expects the work to take a year or longer if they find they need to repaint it.

After it’s restored, Huth said they’ll display it at car shows.

Huth and Palmgren each have one screen-used KITT, which he said they share custody of.

Huth’s KITT, which was featured on an episode of “Jay Leno’s Garage” in 2018 and was reunited with Hasselhoff on an episode of Good Morning America in 2019, is in his garage, where he is working on its dash. Palmgren’s is at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

“This is one of my favorite things to do, to take something that was kind of lost to time and neglected and bring it back to the way it was,” Huth said. “Combining that with Knight Rider, it doesn’t get any better than that.”