Justin Bruening takes driver's seat in 'Knight Rider'

 NBC takes the '80s cult fave 'Knight Rider' out for another spin and this time it's being driven by Michael Knight's cynical son

The Knight is young.

Oh, he was always youngish. The man born as Michael Arthur Long was all of 33 when he was critically wounded, declared dead and spirited away by the Foundation for Law and Government (FLAG), which gave him a new face and identity as Michael Knight ( David Hasselhoff) in the 1980s series "Knight Rider." And though equipped with a quipping car - the talking Trans Am KITT, an artificial intelligence on wheels and just the ultimate toy - Knight was a genuine grown-up: Vietnam veteran. Detective lieutenant in the LAPD. Well-versed in self-defense, small arms and investigative technique.

What it was: A customized 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, designed by Michael Scheffe and built by George Barris.

What it did: Giving new meaning to the phrase "fully loaded," talking was the least of KITT's unlikely capabilites, though it has since been revealed that the "jumping" stunts were cut together, using a hollow fibreglass replica and, in the final season, a  1/8-scale model (actually adapted from the Monogram model kit of a 1982 Camaro Z28). The distinctive rolling red eye on the front grill was producer Glen A. Larson's homage to the Cylons of his own earlier Battlestar Galactica.

Where it is now: Or rather, where are they now? One of four original production cars was sold last year for $149,995 (U.S.) to a California car dealer. Another is supposedly owned by Joey Fatone. Yet another was originally gifted to David Hasselhoff, who sold it to a private collector in 1992. That's actually a replica he's riding in his "Jump in My Car" music video.

KITT is the analog name for the fictional scifi advanture series Knight Rider character artificial intelligence mounted in a highly advanced very mobile weapons platform disguised as a sleek contemporary automobile, and that series' subsequent spin-offs and continuations.

The original full name stood for Knight Industries Two Thousand, whereas the updated 2008 movie refers to the successive AI unit designated as the Knight Industries Three Thousand.

2008 Knight Rider revision
 
Knight Industries Three ThousandMain article: Knight Rider (2008 film)

The details about the new KITT – the acronym now standing for "Knight Industries Three Thousand" – for the upcoming made for TV Knight Rider movie have been released.[2] The KITT platform will be patterned on a 2008 Ford Mustang GT500KR and have various different features from the original Two Thousand unit, such as being based on nano-technology which allows the car's outer shell to actually physically rearrange itself into similar car forms temporarily as well as its own color pattern which allows its structure to do things that the original physical car could not such as generating new license plates rather than depending on a rotating frame as in the original car. The nanotech platform is written as needing the AI active in order to do any of these effects, unlike the original car's gadgets and super "molecular shell" which allowed it to endure extreme impacts. These nano-tech detriments are shown as when the bulletproof ability of the car windows is lost and the villians are able to shoot through to the driver when the AI is deactivated. These new effects are achieved primarily with CGI animation.

In the 2008 movie, the original Two Thousand chasis unit is shown disassembled in one of the opening scenes, suggesting that the original KITT (Two Thousand) was either retired or destroyed from the end of the original series.