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You’re looking at the new K.I.T.T. from the upcoming made-for-TV Knight Rider movie. No, your eyes do not deceive you: It’s a Ford Mustang. A Mustang GR500KR to be precise.
Normally I’d rag on GM for not taking advantage of this and getting a new version of their Pontiac Firebird in there. After all, in the original series the car was a Firebird, which at the time was a pretty cool looking car. However I’ll give them a pass for two reasons:
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1. Although this is Knight Rider, it’s a made-for-TV movie. Not as big a deal as getting their hot new Camaro into the Transformers movie.
2. As far as I know, they don’t have a new Pontiac Firebird ready to roll yet. I say “yet” because the Camaro and Firebird have always been two versions of the same car. If they have a new Camaro out, the Firebird can’t be far behind.
As to story details, AICN and Hollywood Reporter bring us the following:
- David Hasselhoff does appear, playing Michael Knight although his son Mike Tracer (Justin Bruening is the star.
- Tracer (not Knight Jr. - his dad did save the father of a hot young babe in a different town every week after all) is recruited by his long-time best friend, Sarah Graiman and her physicist father, Charles (Davison), to join the Knight Foundation.
- Bruce Davison (Senator Kelly in the first two X-MEN films) will appear as Charles Graiman.
Here’s a bigger look at the car:
The story revolves around the Knight Foundation’s commitment to counteracting and preventing the damage done by private, covert military contractors. Charles creates the next generation K.I.T.T. to help in their mission. A millionare wants Charles to create a version of the car for himself and when Charles refuses, the millionare uses one of those contractors to murder him.
It’s unknown at this point if they’ll bring back William Daniels to provide the voice of the artificially intelligent car. I think they should, but the guy is 80 years old at this point, so who knows?
The TV movie is being considered a pilot, and if it gets decent ratings may end up being spun off into a series. My gut-check meter says: Stinker.
Sources: Jalopnik.com via AICN and Hollywood Reporter
14 Comments
Not a huge fan of this new K.I.T.T.(would have rather seen a new corvette),but at least it’s American.
Vic
Vic, I agree with you. This doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a good attempt at Knight Rider. The design of KITT alone just says this is wrong. A previous Mustang may have worked for Domino in TKR, but for KITT, not a chance. The only way they can even try to save this is to make this a new car with a new personality.
Even if they do that, though, I’m still not too excited by everything else I’ve heard. Still, I’ll at least give it a chance. Who knows, they might surprise me. It’s happened before.
Yea I’m not digging the Mustang ether.
A Corvette would have been better.
^
I wonder who will be the voice of KITT? Wouldn’t it be cool if it was Hasselhoff’s voice?
That might get me to watch…
^
I hate the Mustang idea, this is an still more mistakes will burn the movie right out of series. If these brainstormers wanted to re-invent kitt then why not do what the orignal inventors of kitt do and HEAVILY modd out an existing car? With technology the way it is today any GM car could be modded out to look very cool and original while still keeping the stream-lined KITT look. Sorry Ford your KITT car sucks at looking cutting edge and lacks the aerodynamics to reach the speeds KITT could.
Vic
Don’t get me wrong kev, I too like the 500kr as a car. As a replacement for a KITT however this is a very wrong choice. Any viewer watching this brick doing over 220 mph will roll their eyes. Super cars are like super women, sleek and slippery with a couple of attractive points up front. The car is what made the original show fly, the Mustang could only be a re-embodied KARR come back to haunt Knight Industries. Then again even that might scream rip off as Transformers just introduced their own evil Shelby 500kr.
I am glad they are coming out with Knight Rider again. I love the original one and I cannot wait to see this one. I think the Mustang looks sharp, but it is no comparison to the original. I would love to own the original Kitt. But I do own the new Mustang
I think making another and improved night rider is a great idea and i agree with david that there is no show without the car talking
Well Graham we will all know by tomarrow if it was a hit or a miss.
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I can’t wait for Vics review.
Val Kilmer is the voice for KITT 3000. He replaced another actor who had a contract dispute.
By now im sure everybody has seen the pilot. I enjoyed the entire movie except the drama scenes. Should be interesting to see if each episode deals with black river corp or not. Koodos to the special effects gurus for the KITT morphing scenes.
Unfortunately, I have not yet seen the movie. I’m stuck in Warsaw, Poland, at the moment and won’t get to see it anytime soon. Looking forward to it though.
why not the new dodge challenger 08 or the original knight rider car with new mods
What's your opinion? Leave a comment!