When " Knight Rider " premiered 26 age ago , the idea of a talking elevator car was preposterous , steep and completely cool . With David Hasselhoff behind the wheel of the chattyKnight Industries Two Thousand , orKITT , the military action serial ran for four years before it ran out of juice .

Last February , " Knight Rider " was uprise as a two - minute movie , with a supped up KITT and a new star in Justin Bruening . He plays Mike Traceur , son of Hasselhoff ’s Michael Knight . Drawing 12.7 million viewers during the all - important end run made a spin - off version the next coherent step , and it quickly got the unripe illumination from the web .

But presently it became percipient that while the nostalgia broker might have been enough to pique interest in a television flick , it would n’t be enough to sustain an audience on a weekly footing . And neither would a utter cable car . Thanks toOnStarandGPS , " Everybody ’s car talks now , " reminds serial producer Gary Scott Thompson , a fan of the original . Thompson realized that to interest a coevals that grew up with " transformer , " the Batmobile - turn - Batpod in " The Dark Knight " and a embarrassment of video games , KITT would have to be nothing short of spectacular , and the activeness – to reference the form of address of a movie Thompson script – had to be debauched and furious .

" consultation wo n’t sit still for people just talking any longer . There are too many options out there –movies , hundreds of channels , TV games . Our competition isXboxandPlaystation , " Thompson points out . To get unexampled , young fans to tune in along with lover of the original , " We had to make it quicker paced while telling entertaining stories , " he observe . " The idea is to do a 43 - minute picture show every week . This is arguably the bountiful show in TV , between thestunts , the elevator car , the visual effects andspecial consequence , " he say .

Bruening and his team , played by Deanna Russo , Yancey Arias , Sydney Tamiia Poitier , Paul Campbell , Smith Cho and Bruce Davidson , go out of a high - tech KITT Cave in the series , which " is much more in the ' Mission : Impossible ' nervure , " enounce Thompson . But as he , Bruening , and everyone else call for readily profess , the centerpiece and star of the show is undeniably the railroad car , and a pile of body of work went into make a sporty , black Ford Mustang morph into the Knight Industries Three Thousand supercar .

­

Smart Car

KITT in its normal mode is a production modelFord Mustang GT 500"with some tuning andsuspensionmodifications , " says Ray Claridge , founder of Cinema Vehicles , a North Hollywood firm that builds and customizes trilled stock for moving picture and TV shows . Claridge ’s squad added features like a rear spoiler with lighting , mirror lights , strip lights and what he calls " flash ignition " as part of the design specifications ordered by artist Harald Belker . But other intent elements were a bit trickier .

" In the original design , the front of the car was probably an inch and a half off the ground . That is n’t gon na work . You ca n’t drive a flat control surface everywhere you go . You score a bump and that ’s the end of that . So we made some adjustment so it could function on the highway while staying on-key to the design , " explains Claridge , who exercise closely withFord"to make certain that the wholeness of their product was kept in spot . When you see the car , you love it ’s a Mustang . "

To date , he has create sixKITTcars , four facsimile machine of the normal ' hero ' version for beauty and stunt use , and two attack vehicles , with performance enhancements . While producers wanted to use as many practical result as potential , time and budget preclude some of that . Television producer " have a feature of speech learning ability on a beer budget , " observes Claridge , noting that each vehicle cost around six figures .

" compromise have to be made . [ The web ] wanted a mountain of it to work practically , but budget constraints get in the direction , " notes Claridge . " So some of the mechanically skillful effect are now going to be CGI [ information processing system - generated mental imagery ] . " When KITT transforms from normal into attack mode , " the transition will be CGI . Our mathematical product is the end - product . " So far , KITT has morph into other Ford models include a pickup truck and a Predator .

Computer effect also come into play in KITT ’s interior . " There ’s atouch screenacross the front windscreen , much like aniPhone , so you could download information and view 3 - 500 objects while driving the gondola , " outlines Thompson . " KITT hassatellitesurveillance that can track anybody and anything around the world . And KITT is take , through artificial intelligence information . KITT go from a logic point of persuasion . He ’s almost more human than the mankind are . "

KITT ’s voice , however , is not digital , and in fact may fathom conversant . It belong to actor Val Kilmer , about whom Thompson rabbit on . " He gives you multiple pick and multiple ways every time he says something . " Kilmer record independently , so Bruening does his KITT dialogue view with a part double " who can impersonate Val very well – same cadences and everything . " But does Bruening actually push the car himself , or does he have a stunt doubly do the driving for him ?

Stunts & Logistics

Bruening and other cast member tookstuntdriving deterrent example to be capable to do the less grievous stunts . " I ’m working with Corey Eubanks , my stunt number one wood , and I ’m learning to do thing like reverse 180s and how toslidea car toward the camera without strike it . It ’s really nerve - wracking , " he intrust . " It ’s not that I ’m not comfortable behind the wheel , it ’s that there ’s a chemical group of 30 people stand there , and I have to slide the car to a sure spot so I do n’t collide with them . Corey is amazing . He can take this car and have it go around a barrel , two inch from the barrel . He ’s teaching me to do a lot – not that – but I require to be able to a lot of things that you see on the show . "

Bruening does " 98 percent of the fights " in the show , and is eager to do so , " as long as it ’s nothing that can potentially injure me . " A fan of the original " Knight Rider , " he re - learn it when he won the use . " It was credibly one of my favourite show , " say the star , who turns 29 on the series ' premier date , September 24 .

" Knight Rider " shoots on placement inLos Angeles , which put its own set of challenge . " close down superhighway and highway and downtown is sort of a pain , " sighs Thompson , who antecedently produced " Las Vegas " for TV and publish the screenplay for " The Fast and the Furious " and its sequel . " It does n’t make me a pop person . "

Another challenge facing the " Knight Rider " creators is finding a way to not only please fans of the original series and draw in young viewers too immature to have watched it , but also to retain the interest of those who liked the two - hour boob tube movie – even though some cast members have been edit and tot up and plot of land tweak in an effort to function an ongoing story . " We had to expand the mythology to be able to commit off a serial publication , " says Thompson , who did not work on the telepic version .

While he wonders if fans will be disappointed that David Hasselhoff , who had a cameo role in the goggle box movie , is n’t in the serial , Thompson say it ’s not a dead issue and the original Knight Rider could return .

Thompson and his co - executive manufacturer agnize they ca n’t please everyone , but they ’re go to attempt , put an emphasis on lighthearted entertainment . It ’s a lesson learned from last time of year ’s short - lived reboot of " The Bionic Woman , " which Thompson find too different in tone from the original . " It was fun indirect request fulfillment , and they forgot about that part . It was dreary and sulk . They forgot the playfulness aspect . It would have been fine for a channel like Sci - fi , but for a connection , you ’ve got to extend your skyline and your appeal . " And give ‘em the cool railroad car on telly .

For more information on Knight Rider , other really cool cars and related issue , accelerate through to the liaison on the next Sir Frederick Handley Page .

Lots More Information

touch HowStuffWorks Articles

More Great Links

author