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Photos by Brian Addison<\/em><\/p>\n For any child of the 1980s with dreams of souped-up rides, Knight Rider<\/em> was a staple in one’s television diet.<\/p>\n The iconic opening theme\u2014which has been sampled by musicians ranging from Timbaland to System of a Down\u2014became synonymous with the image of the car that made Knight Rider<\/em> a legend: a customized, black 1982 Pontiac Trans-Am that communicated with its hero and crime-fighting driver, Michael Knight.<\/p>\n And the dream that many a child had, to own the car nicknamed KITT, has become a reality for 30-year-old Long Beach resident KT Spence as he teamed with his mother, Jeri, to reproduce the iconic car.<\/p>\n “I’ve always been in love with the show since I was a kid,” KT said. “And specifically I fell in love with the car. Now that I’m older, I thought, ‘Why not just build the car and rent it out to fans like me?'”<\/p>\n That’s precisely what KT did\u2014of course, not without Mom’s pocketbook, which KT humbly noted was the sole source of funding for the project.<\/p>\n “I just thought it was a great idea,” Jeri said. “A mother-son team who is setting out to rebuild Hollywood cars. I don’t want to stop here\u2014I want us to have the Scooby-Doo van and the Batmobile.”<\/p>\n Outside of their larger vehicular aspirations, the main focus currently remains KITT, the car they are still working to perfect. The adventure began when KT discovered a pristine 1984 red Trans-Am in Thousand Oaks. Previously owned by an airline attendant. The car had only 24,000 miles and lacked major damage, offering Jeri and KT the perfect start to recreating KITT. With car in hand, the pair then found a Knight Rider prop creator in Italy\u2014Giuseppe Visconti\u2014who had the famous dashboard.<\/p>\n Neither KT nor Jeri have ever done anything along the lines of this before, having become autodidacts in reproduction through the process of making KITT come back to life.<\/p>\n “This is actually my first time [reproducing a famous car],” KT said. “I’ve just had to teach myself through online forums and honestly, it’s just been fun.”<\/p>\n The mother-son team hopes that the car’s nostalgic fan following will use it for special events\u2014Jeri enthusiastically talked about a wedding she had heard about where the bride and groom escaped in a KITT replica\u2014or to simply nerd out. And that hope has already materialized in one way: Vice Mayor Robert Garcia\u2014a self-described comic and 80s nerd\u2014will ride in the replica during this year’s Belmont Christmas Parade.<\/p>\n The only question that remains: When are we gonna get that Scooby-Doo van?<\/p>\n {gallery}addison\/KnightRider{\/gallery}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For any child of the 1980s with dreams of souped-up rides, Knight Rider<\/em> was a staple in one’s television diet. And for Long Beach mother-son team KT and Jeri Spence, they’ve turned the dream of rebuilding the show’s iconic car, KITT, into a reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":68897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1598,1599,1600],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-knight-rider","tag-nerd-culture","tag-nostalgia","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3659"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3659"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}