Autoblog

UPDATE: Back by popular demand, direct download of the podcast has been added as a link below.

The biggest news of the past week: the suckfest that was the Knight Rider movie. Alex liveblogged it so that we didn't have to watch. Sure it was crap, but was it really that bad? The original was a clunker, too, remember. There's car stuff going on, too, and we move on to covering what's in our respective Autoblog Garages. Keep an eye out for some new reviews, and John has a podcast-exclusive announcement, too.

We spin off into a small car smackdown, postulate on who should buy Jaguar if Tata flips them, and boomerang back to our MINI vs. Aveo sales number deathmatch. In this week's installment of "Fords We Don't Get," there's a new Austrailian Falcon that is available in full-on sinister. It's badass in FPV trim, not available here, and Alan Mullaly wants one, too. One Ford we are getting is the Fiesta (Verve) and that's something to actually be excited about. That's about it, thanks to Adam Curry for the plug, it's 52 minutes of fun this week.

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While it might be a dubious pursuit to rehash old B-level (or lower) TV series for a new generation, the possibility of a crap product has never stood in the way before. Indeed, the retreading of Knight Rider is underway, with shoots already taking place. Love it or hate it, it will hit the small screen, and if you can get over the fact that it's not the original, it might be fun. If it's rotten, it won't hang around long anyhow. It's not like the original series was Citizen Kane, so let's just be thankful that there's a new shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist.

Hollywood blog The ODI managed to finagle some time on a location shoot for the new series and snapped some stills. There's no shots of the new KITT, but our old pal the Knight Industries Two Thousand is there in this garage scene. The premise apparently is that the old KITT is being rebuilt in a garage/lab after being totaled. The shop is set up with automotive parts and tools, as well as much-later F-Body than the original (check out the taillights). We would have imagined that KITT's powerplant was something more exotic than a carbureted small block with an Eaton-style supercharger. Maybe that's the engine they removed to put in the exotic hydrogen turbine, or nuclear reactor, or whatever. Can we get a rewrite?

[Source: The ODI via SpoilerTV, Photos: The ODI]

This is a picture-perfect reproduction of the Knight Industries 2000. Unfortunately, after all that money and man-hours, the gooey center is still an '80s F-Body. Canadian seller zapper80 has done an awesome job putting this car together, and claims a cost of over $40,000 CDN. Zapper80 cites original molds as the source for some of the body parts, which leads us to believe that the car was put together from the wealth of parts and information available from the enthusiastic Knight Rider fans on the web. The amount of information, and lines of communication back to KITT designer Michael Scheffe are truly astounding. No matter where everything came from, it's a hoot to see it all lit up, and even better, it all works. Well, maybe not the "Turbo Boost" function that'd send 3000 pounds of Trans-Am hurtling over bad guys. This car probably has more mojo under its hood than the original KITT the Hoff tooled around in while doing good for FLAG.

Still, even with all the effort expended, we think the reserve of $19,000 and the buy it now of $30,000 are kind of loony, even in Canadian dollars. Original fans of the series (some of us Autobloggers included) don't have the deep pockets boomers are using to push vintage musclecar prices sky-high; and perhaps our memories of Michael, Devon, and the gang aren't fond enough that we'd want to be extremely conspicuous. Perhaps the value of these cars will rise to meet zapper's hopes when the Weinsteins debut their Knight Rider movie. For the ulitmate 1984 smackdown, we envision a drag race between one of these, and a Delorean that's been defiled with all the time-machine crap. KITT would so totally kick McFly's ass.

More pictures after the jump

Renault-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn is being honored by the UK for his "contribution to relations between the UK and Japan". Ghosn will be appointed "Honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire" (which, incredibly, actually has nothing to do with either Dungeons and Dragons or the Lord of the Rings).

Like Mario Andretti's commendatore honor bestowed by the Italian consul-general in New York, Ghosn will be pseudo-knighted in a ceremony at the British Embassy in Tokyo. Because he's a foreign national, we can't technically call him "sir", but he can add the letters KBE to his name. Ghosn is actually the second Datsun chief to receive the honor, after former Nissan chairman Takashi Ishihara received the same in 1992.

Ghosn attributed the recognition to the "hard work and achievements" of Nissan's 5500 employees and 220 dealers in the United Kingdom. After winning both the constructors' and drivers' championships in Formula One just this past Sunday, we bet this will make Ghosn walk even taller. Congratulations, Carlos!

[Source: Autocar via Winding Road]