Knight Rider is returning to screens, this time the big screen, thanks to Universal Pictures and Cobra Kai creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg. The original show ran from 1982 to 1986 and was a huge hit, so much so that it’s already been rebooted no less than four times.
The first was the made-for-TV movie Knight Rider 2000 (1991), followed by another TV flick called Knight Rider 2010 (1994). Then they rebooted the TV show as Team Knight Rider in 1997. Finally, another TV movie simply called Knight Rider debuted in 2008 and flowed right into a new television series of the same name that lasted 22 episodes before being canceled.
Entertainment Weekly is reporting that the involvement of one David Hasselhoff, who played the titular character Michael Knight in the original series, is unknown. The Hoff has said in the past that he’d be up for participating in a Knight Rider movie if it were properly retro. Of course, Michael Knight shared the small screen with the real star of the show, K.I.T.T., a black 1982 Pontiac Trans Am voiced by Mr. Feeney himself, William Daniels, who’s still alive and kicking at 98 years of age.
What Car Should K.I.T.T Be?
The hardest part about rebooting Knight Rider is deciding what car should play K.I.T.T. In past reboots, he’s reappeared as the poor man’s version of the Pontiac Banshee concept car from the ’90s. In the most recent TV series reboot, he was played by a 2007-2009 S197 Ford Shelby GT500KR. Which car could play him in 2025? We’re glad you asked.
Pontiac is dead, so there’s no modern version of the Trans Am available. Heck, even the Trans Am’s platform-mate, the Chevrolet Camaro, is gone. So we’re forced to look outside of General Motors for inspiration unless we want to cast the C8 Corvette. The ‘Vette certainly looks the part, but it doesn’t have the same ease of ingress/egress the original car had, an important trait when your actors need to jump into and out of K.I.T.T. quickly.
The only two American-made muscle cars left these days are the Ford Mustang, which has been tried and failed, and the new Dodge Charger, which is now available in both gas-powered and all-electric versions, as well as two- and four-door models. The Charger is a big car, certainly capable of comfortably transporting our nuevo Mr. Knight and one lucky passenger. It even already has a light bar in its grille, similar to the original screen car. Lastly, Stellantis would kill for this kind of product placement that might improve the car’s fortunes after its very slow sales start.
But let’s keep looking. While it’s hard to imagine anything other than a U.S. domestic model as K.I.T.T., if we allow ourselves to consider it for a moment, McLaren has a stable of futuristic-looking supercars that would fit the bill. The Porsche 911, with its round eyes and soft expression, could also be a contender.
Let’s get crazy for a second, though, and look at the Chinese-made Yangwang U9 Track Edition that just set a new top speed record for electric cars of 295 miles per hour. With nearly 3,000 horsepower, it has fictional levels of power, and it benefits from being a virtual unknown in the States. It looks like a real car, though, unlike the concept cars they tried to use for K.I.T.T. in the past. Lastly, with a Chinese car comes Chinese investment, a boon for both the producers looking to get this project made and China, which would love nothing more than to endear Americans to its cars, which are illegal to sell here thanks to politics.
TopSpeed’s Take
Another Knight Rider reboot. Some of us recall hate-watching the last TV reboot with our friends. It was fun, but we sure wouldn’t mind an actually good Knight Rider movie. Recent ’80s TV shows-turned-movie reboots give us hope, such as The Fall Guy, which was fun to watch. Heck, if they can reboot The Addams Family and find success with Wednesday, it shouldn’t be impossible to recreate a modern-day Michael Knight and his trusty vehicular sidekick.
And yet, we know from experience the producers here are playing with fire. For some reason, vehicle-based TV shows are extra difficult to reboot because the cars of our youth were such characters themselves, which is difficult to find in today’s modern machines. That said, we’ll be waiting anxiously to hear which car gets cast in the leading role. And then there’s Michael Knight himself. Just give it to Jacob Elordi and call it a day.
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