Knight Rider was Glen A. Larson's, made by his own company with Universal Television, and NBC ran it from 26 September 1982 to 4 April 1986 — four seasons and 90 episodes. Its premise is a man given a second life: Michael Long, an LAPD detective shot in the face, is rescued by the billionaire Wilton Knight, given a new face and a new name, Michael Knight, and sent out as the field agent of the Foundation for Law and Government. David Hasselhoff played him. His partner was the car.
KITT stands for Knight Industries Two Thousand, and underneath it is a 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am — a brand-new shape that year. The third-generation Firebird arrived in late 1981 with a 62-degree windscreen, retractable headlamps and nearly 500 lb taken out of it — the Trans Am's drag coefficient was 0.32. Michael Scheffe designed KITT's nose and dashboard, the ride height came down an inch and a half, and each car cost about $100,000 to build. Pontiac supplied the studio's cars for a dollar apiece, often damaged ones. On screen KITT ran on a turbojet; the real cars had a 145 hp 5.0-litre V8.
The red scanner across the nose was Larson borrowing from himself: it is a nod to the Cylons of his Battlestar Galactica, and it reuses the sound of a Cylon's eye. The voice was William Daniels, who asked not to be credited for it. For the scenes where KITT drives itself, stuntman Jack Gill sat behind the driver's seat, hidden by a two-way mirror. The fourth season rebuilt the car with Super Pursuit Mode — retractable spoilers and movable air intakes — and swapped the T-top for a convertible; George Barris built those versions.
Twenty-three KITTs were made for filming, possibly as many as 25, and most were destroyed in the process. Five are known to survive. More "original" cars have since been sold at auction than were ever built.
DeAGOSTINI Japan launched its weekly Knight Rider on 1 June 2021 and finished it with issue 110 on 11 July 2023; this is that Japanese edition, and its KITT speaks Japanese. The 1:8 model is die-cast, about 61 cm long and 5 kg. A Comlink wristwatch works it: the scanner and front lights come on, the dashboard and roof lights flash as KITT talks, and it plays the theme and his lines. The doors and windows open, footwell lights come on with the doors, the engine bay shows the turbojet, and the number plate rotates through three plates. Fanhome sold the same 110-stage model in the US, since withdrawn; the manufacturer link goes to DeAGOSTINI Japan's complete-kit page, where the 110 issues' parts are still sold as a set.