The Original

Everyone remembers the adventures of Michael Knight and his black super-car K.I.T.T. from the TV show "Knight Rider", which aired on NBC from 1982-1986...

K.I.T.T. - the "Knight Industries Two Thousand" - was a modified black Pontiac Trans Am, equipped with a board computer and artificial intelligence plus a range of technical sophistications, which made it possible for Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff) to solve every complicated case for the "Foundation for Law and Government".

The TV show was produced by the Universal Studios from 1982 to 1986 in 90 episodes (4 seasons). It was completed by a TV movie called "Knight Rider 2000" in 1991 and a all-new TV show from 2008, where K.I.T.T. was built into completely new cars.

During the original series, K.I.T.T. was improved slightly from time to time. In the beginning of the pilot episode the front of the car was the standard Pontiac front with a simple red flashing light bar. This front was changed some time later during the same episode to a modified frontnose:


The cockpit of the first two seasons had a lot of light diodes with 2 TV monitors:


In the episode "Knight of the Drones", K.I.T.T. was destroyed completely and got a brand new cockpit with a larger monitor, which I also added to my personal replica:


Another variant is K.I.T.T.'s bad prototype K.A.R.R., who first looked like the 1st-season-car (with a yellow voicebox) and differented in a later episode by a yellow light bar and a silver-grey coloring:


There are 2 more modifications: In the beginning of the fourth season, K.I.T.T. got the "Super Pursuit Mode" (left picture), which made it possible to drive 300 MpH. Additionally K.I.T.T. was able to change his look completely into a convertible (right picture). Both functions are technically impossible. The showmakers used other cars for both effects: