KNIGHT RIDER
K.A.R.R. (MODEL KIT) PROJECT #514 CREATED: 2013 "I am the Knight Automated Roving Robot—the first in a bold, new experiment. You may call me K.A.R.R." The production crew for Knight Rider used numerous Pontiac Trans Am vehicles to portray the Knight Industries Two Thousand (there was a normal, operational "hero" car; a lightweight fiberglass car with no engine for the Turbo Boost scenes; a "self-driving" car with a stunt driver sequestered inside the driver's seat, etc.) so it wasn't too difficult to take one of these extra cars and turn it into a villain. The evil twin of K.I.T.T. harassed the principal characters during an early first-season episode and then made a return appearance in season three. K.A.R.R. had a differently-designed voice modulator that lit up when he spoke (and it was sufficiently cool-looking that K.I.T.T. later got a similar one), and his front sensor was a different color, but aside from that he was physically identical to K.I.T.T. About halfway through his second appearance, he suddenly appears with grey rocker panels (K.A.R.R. says something about wanting to change his appearance, so ostensibly he had this paint work done at some point off-screen). The two-tone black-and-grey scheme has become K.A.R.R.'s signature look, and is the basis for most of his official merchandising. Ever since I built a model of K.I.T.T., I've wanted a second one to paint it into K.A.R.R., but they go for crazy expensive prices on eBay. I took a chance on an opened kit that was $12.95, whose seller promised it was complete. The kit, as it turns out, was missing the fan for the engine and one of the lower control arms for the suspension. It was really going to bother me that they were missing, so I had to build my own from scratch. Another problem I encountered was that while the kit had not yet been assembled, somebody had dripped model glue on the hood and spoiler. Model glue actually melts styrene, so it looked like the xenomorph from Aliens had drooled all over these parts. I had to resurface them, building them up with paint and then sanding them down as smooth as possible. By the time of the third season, K.I.T.T. (and, by extension, K.A.R.R.) had lost the vents on their front bumpers and had plainly-visible fog lights. So, one change I made was to cut away at the vents and build two pairs of fog lights, mounted on the chassis and visible just behind the bumper. (How did K.A.R.R. acquire these visible fog lights when he was buried in sand for two years? I think the question you need to be asking is, how did he go from exploding at the end of his first episode to being merely buried in sand?) The dashboard for the model kit is very detailed, but it's also very tiny. I printed out a tiny picture of the voice modulator and glued it to the dash, and I took screen captures of his interior temperature display and status display and stuck those on his display screens. I have him a special license plate that reads K.A.R.R. to replace the embossed plate that said "KNIGHT." K.A.R.R. has an amber-colored front scanner, contrasting with K.I.T.T.'s more familiar red one, so painted that part of the model orange, with tiny yellow lights to create the impression of a light source. |
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