Autoblog

The series premiere of Knight Rider on NBC last night pulled a 4.9/10 Nielsen rating in its 8PM time slot, which, according to tvbythenumbers.com, isn't exactly a stellar score for a series opener. In other words, Nielsen is estimating that 4.9% of all TV households were watching Knight Rider last night, and that group includes TV households that both did and did not have their TVs turned on at the time. The second number means that out of all the TVs turned on between 8PM and 9PM last night, 10% were watching Knight Rider.

How does that measure up with Knight Rider's competition on Wednesday nights? Not so hot. KR was third in the 18-49 demographic and 4th in the more important 18-34 demo. Robert Seldman who writes for tvbythenumbers.com tells us that the 18-34 year old demographic was even more interested in watching America's Next Top Model than Michael Knight, and that includes both males and females.

The Nunez household counted itself among the few that watched the Knight Rider premiere, and in case you missed it, check out Alex's liveblog of the first episode. He's promised to be in front of the tube each week so you don't have to.

[Source: tvbythenumbers.com]

Autoblogger Alex Nunez has been in a self-imposed Knight Rider cone of silence despite the series premiere being released online last week. He'll be liveblogging the episode's broadcast premiere on NBC tonight at 8PM EST right here on Autoblog, just like he did for the made-for-TV movie that aired last February, and he wants to preserve his first impressions just for you. We've also kept him in a cage during the show's entire development process, and every night we poke him with a stick while playing the Knight Rider theme song. He'll be extra ornery for the return of Michael Knight Mike Tracer and KITT to the small screen, so be right back here at 8PM EST for the fun.

UPDATE: The Liveblog for Episode 1 is here.

Click above for high-res pic of the actual KITT F-150

Mike Levine from Pickuptrucks.com recently spoke with Knight Rider Executive Producer Gary Scott Thompson and got the skinny on KITT's new ability to transform himself (seriously, I just called it a "him") from a 2008 Shelby GT500KR to a 2009 Ford F-150 FX-4. The idea for having KITT morph into a truck came to Thompson when he needed his main character and that week's damsel in distress to make a quick getaway without KITT having to stop for them to get in, so he imagined the car as a pickup. This way the characters could hop right in its bed (we see this happen in the new clip that was released by NBC), though we're unsure how they survive the metal origami that turns KITT back into a car. We also disagree with Thompson when he alludes to the GT500KR being "about the same mass" as the F-150, but he feels justified in taking this direction with KITT after consulting with "futurists" at Microsoft who predict that vehicles will change their shape to suit our needs by 2030. We don't know what being a futurist entails, but we're not inclined to believe ones employed by Microsoft who failed to predict the backlash against Vista, how bad the Zune would sell or that the entire first batch of XBox 360s would fail. Clairvoyants they are not.

Though the rendering at right reveals KITT F-150 was originally designed to bear a bigger resemblance to the GT500KR on which the car is based, it's ended up being just a blacked-out F-150 FX-4 with KITT's signature red light bar above and behind the top bar of the grille. That should make it easy for fanboys to recreate with their own 2009 F-150s though, because we just know sales of the truck are going to skyrocket after the new season of Knight Rider begins.


[Source: Pickuptrucks.com]

click above to watch the Knight Rider movie

I did not watch the Knight Rider made-for-TV movie last night. Instead, I checked out Alex's liveblog during the show, which took less time to get through and, from what I've been told, was a lot more entertaining. I have KITT's return to the small screen waiting for me on DVR, but for those of you who don't, our sister-site TV Squad has the entire thing, all 120 minutes, hosted within its review. We'll direct you here to view it and check out Joel Keller's review of the remake that actually dissects the many issues that kept the show from being entertaining, engaging, exciting and, well, any other adjective one would use to describe something good.

NBC earned a 6.9/10 ratings share at 9PM for the Knight Rider movie according to our friends at knightrideronline.com, who – big surprise – happened to love it, which was second only to an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (Damn that Ty Pennington!). Now it's up to the peacock network to decide the fate of new KITT and his band of merry vigilantes. Our bet is that 13 episodes have already been ordered, 'cause the ratings share was pretty good and, more importantly, the demographic for this show falls within a sweet spot for most advertisers.


[Source: TV Squad]

click above for more new high-res images of KITT

As we all know, Knight Rider will be returning to television this Sunday at 9PM EST on NBC. The new Michael Knight played by Justin Bruening and his car companion KITT, voiced by Val Kilmer, made an appearance on the Today Show this morning (disclaimer: the Today Show is also an NBC program) to promote the mini-movie that will eventually become a full series next fall. Bruening reveals a bit more about the story we'll be watching this Sunday, some of which we already knew and a few new bits. His character is playing the estranged son of the original Michael Knight, a role that will be reprised by David Hasselhoff himself in the movie, though the new Mike Knight is unaware the guy standing next to him with the same name is his dad. Bruening also reveals the loophole that supposedly fills in the 25-year gap between the original series and the new one, which is that the original writers never identified KITT's inventor. OK, well we'll have to see how that one plays out. Ford, meanwhile, which paid a pretty penny to have the GT500KR Mustang play the part of nuevo KITT, has released three more photos of the Knight Industries car, which make lovely desktop wallpaper backgrounds if you're a true fan. We'll decide our degree of fanboyosity after we watch the movie this weekend.


[Source: Jalopnik, Ford]

click above to view the newest Knight Rider commercial

The latest television commercial for the upcoming Knight Rider movie that airs this Sunday on NBC plays like an ad for Cars.com. KITT is parallel parked on a city street while a trigger happy nuevo Michael Knight gets busy with the key fob, experimenting with the GT500KR's nano tech-based shape-shifting abilities. We learn that KITT's shape shifting range is pretty limited. He can turn into any color late model Ford Mustang, and that's it. So when the bad guys are searching for an overly winged Attack KITT, the most sophisticated car on the planet will hide by magically transforming into a 2007 Mustang V6 with the Pony Package. This is where we sigh out loud and bemoan how bad this movie and the resulting series is going to be. But we'll watch it anyways this Sunday on NBC. Who knows, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is actually pretty good, and we were sure that show was gonna to suck. Check out the commercial for yourself after the jump.

[Source: knightrideronline.com]

click above image to view 2-minute Knight Rider preview video

We've claimed from the beginning that the new Knight Rider TV series is going to suck, and while we still believe that this is a not brand that'll hold up well to being updated, a new commercial on NBC at least gives us hope. Being nearly two minutes long, this new spot is more like a mini behind-the-scenes documentary in which the writer/producer of the show explains a few things and we're introduced to the new Michael Knight played by some ex-soap star named Justin Bruening. Bruening explains to the camera that his new series is not a remake, it's "a sequel of the original series." Well, sequels are always better than the original right? Follow the jump to view the video in full that contains a number of actual scenes from the upcoming 2-hour movie premiere. You can also check out the previously released 15-second and 30-second spots. Thanks for the tip, Phil!

[Source: YouTube]

Photo from Jay Ohrberg's Hollywood Cars. Click for more photos of the car on that Web site.

So say our colleagues over at Jalopnik who quote their "validated connection" at an L.A. special effects house. Writing for the blog, Ray Wert nominates the Roush Blackjack Mustang for the role and even has photochopped one in full K.I.T.T. livery. But it wouldn't be the first time K.I.T.T. has appeared as a Mustang. In 1994, in a badly failed attempt to revive the Knight Rider series, Universal Television produced "Knight Rider 2010", in which K.I.T.T. is replaced by a Mad Max-styled Ford Mustang seen above. The car is now in Jay Ohrberg's collection of movie cars.

Reading Jalopnik's readers' comments is pretty funny, like the one from Papercutninja, "The Mustang is as technologically advanced as a Trans Am from the '80s." And this one from Seth, "It's like putting the A-Team in Mercedes Sprinter!" But the best might be from SRT8Six, "Maybe the pilot episode will have Michael driving KITT around just so he can figure out where that annoying rattling sound is coming from."

But we have to give props to one of our own readers, James F., who predicted way back in May, 2006 that the Mustang just might be cast in the movie's lead role. Congrats, Mr. F!

So, Autoblog fans, what say you? Will a Mustang be able to save the ass of Michael Knight's son just as well as a Firebird? Will the next special edition Mustang have oscillating LEDs in the grille like Jalopnik's chop? Is this in fact, as Jalopnik commenter Novaload says, where "Mustang AND Knight Rider jump the shark together!"?

[Source: Jalopnik, photo from Jay Ohrberg's Hollywood Cars]

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

Look what Autoblog fan Omar found for us on eBay. What appears to be just another 1970 Porsche 911 T is, in fact, the closest many of us would ever get to being near Michael Knight and Mitch Buchanan. That's right, this rare sunroof 4-speed car once belonged to DAVID HASSELHOFF! And the seller promises to provide proof of der Hoff's ownership, as well.

We have to surmise that this may have actually belonged to the German Giant during his Knight Rider days rather than his stint at the helm of Baywatch. Apparently Michael Knight endured KITT at work, but preferred German cars when he left for home. Maybe that helps explain the German populace's fascination with his music.

eBay Motors item number 300058989907 still has about 8 days before the hammer falls and the price is only $5,300, so get your click on and get over to eBay. You can even look into getting it gift wrapped if you happen to be in the UK.

[Source: eBay Motors]