Has Elon finally built KITT? Every Knight Rider car vs. the flying Tesla Roadster
Almost. The new Tesla Roadster does things no KITT ever did for real: it jumps on air thrusters, flips in midair and drives up a wall nearly upside down. KITT still wins on brains. It talked, drove itself and shrugged off bullets, and the Roadster does none of that yet. Knowing who builds it, we wouldn't bet on "yet" lasting long.
The car every 80s kid wanted
Knight Rider ran on NBC from September 26, 1982 to April 4, 1986: four seasons and 90 episodes (Wikipedia). Creator Glen A. Larson put it simply: "I wanted to do The Lone Ranger with a car" (Mental Floss). David Hasselhoff played Michael Knight. The real star was his car.
KITT, the Knight Industries Two Thousand, talked back, drove itself and jumped over trouble with the press of a button marked "Turbo Boost." The voice was William Daniels, who asked not to be credited and recorded each episode alone. "I knocked off an episode in about 45 minutes," he said. He didn't meet Hasselhoff until the show's Christmas party (Mental Floss).
There have been three KITTs. Here is each one, then the Roadster.
KITT, 1982: the Trans Am
The first KITT was a black 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. Michael Scheffe designed its nose and its famous dashboard (Wikipedia). The red light sweeping across the front came from Larson's other show, Battlestar Galactica: he wanted the same scanner the Cylon robots had, and KITT even reused the Cylon sound (Wikipedia).
On the show, KITT could:
- Turbo Boost: fire rocket boosters behind the front wheels and jump over cars, trucks and roadblocks (Wikipedia).
- Drive itself in "Auto Cruise," and team up with Michael in "Pursuit Mode" (Wikipedia).
- Shrug off bullets with its "Molecular Bonded Shell" (Wikipedia).
- Talk to Michael through his wristwatch, a two-way comlink (Wikipedia).
- Drive on two wheels, spray an oil slick, lay a smoke screen and eject a passenger (Wikipedia).
Fans usually quote KITT at 0–60 in about 2 seconds and around 300 mph. Even Ford's 2007 press release repeated the 300 mph figure (Ford, 2007). None of it was real. GM sold the production some Firebirds for $1 each, including cars from a derailed transporter (Road & Track). Wikipedia lists the real engine as a 5.0-liter V8 with about 145 horsepower (Wikipedia). The "self-driving" scenes hid a stunt driver in a low seat on the passenger side (Mental Floss). Around 20 to 25 cars were built, and five survive (Road & Track).
Look closely at that dashboard: a steering yoke instead of a round wheel. Forty years later, the new Roadster has one too (Electrek).
Knight 4000, 1991: the one that looked like a 90s Firebird
KITT came back in the TV movie Knight Rider 2000, aired on NBC on May 19, 1991 (Wikipedia). Michael rebuilds KITT's brain and moves it into a new car, the Knight 4000. Underneath, it was a Dodge Stealth, built by Jay Ohrberg's Star Cars and styled after Pontiac's Banshee IV concept car (Wikipedia).
If you remember it as a mid-90s Firebird, you're not far off. The Banshee IV set the look of the fourth-generation Firebird sold from 1993 to 2002 (Wikipedia). The Knight 4000 added a heads-up display, an amphibious mode and a microwave device that could stun a person (Wikipedia). No licensed photo of the car exists that we can show you.
Two 90s shows people often mix up don't count. Knight Rider 2010 (1994) used a Mustang-bodied car with an AI named Hannah (Wikipedia). Team Knight Rider (1997–98) ran a fleet of Fords, and KITT only got a mention (Wikipedia).
KITT, 2008: the shape-shifting Mustang
NBC brought KITT back in 2008 as the Knight Industries Three Thousand: a TV movie in February, then 17 episodes from September 2008 to March 2009 (Wikipedia). The car was a black Ford Shelby GT500KR. Val Kilmer voiced KITT, uncredited. He replaced Will Arnett, who stepped aside because he was the voice of GMC trucks and the show car was a Ford (Wikipedia).
Ford's own description: KITT's body "can change shape and color through nanotechnology, and its supercomputer can hack almost any system" (Ford, 2007). It turned into an F-150 pickup, a van and a Ford Flex. Its "Attack Mode" brought back the Turbo Boost, now good for brief flight (Wikipedia). In the story, anyway.
The Roadster, 2026: the one that actually flew
On October 15, 2026, at SpaceX's test site in McGregor, Texas, a Tesla Roadster drove up a curved ramp until it was nearly upside down, held on by fans sucking it to the surface. It dropped off, fired its air thrusters, rolled upright in midair and landed. Then it flipped over a row of five Teslas (TechCrunch). How it works, step by step.
Tesla's own video of the kickflip. Tap to play on YouTube.
Even the press reached for the same comparison. CarBuzz wrote that "there's no denying the car launched itself into the air like a Knight Rider turbo boost" (CarBuzz).