Sneak Peek of New Hot Wheels 1/18 KITT!!

[tuske427]

you may/ may not not see it in the pic, but the front nose was re sculpted, adding more of a radius to the front, as well as the fog lights/ opened grilles, and the lens covers details were re sculpted like the season 3 style, and the dashboard has the raised detail on it- correct to season one interior. Tired will be revised for production, but were not revised on this sample.

[imranbecks]

They will revise the tires on KARR but not on KITT??? Now the 1/18 KITT will look out of place beside KARR if KARR will have the correct looking tires....

[DanielB]

It's great that you have listened again and made changes, but it leaves me in two minds now about buying KITT, knowing that there are corrected versions on the way.

Will the Super Elite and Heritage KITTs be based on the corrected mould, or are these changes exclusive to KARR?

[DiggiDiDuck]

you may/ may not not see it in the pic, but the front nose was re sculpted, adding more of a radius to the front, as well as the fog lights/ opened grilles, and the lens covers details were re sculpted like the season 3 style, and the dashboard has the raised detail on it- correct to season one interior. Tired will be revised for production, but were not revised on this sample.

What do you mean with "re sculpted nose". I cannot see any difference comparing to the KITT model!

[DanielB]

More photos from http://www.auto-und-modell.de/pages/akt ... els-Elite/ and http://ksmotorsport.rajce.idnes.cz/Spie ... rg_2013_2/.


1:43 KARR




1:43 KITT




1:18 KARR




1:18 KITT

[Dave Knight]

1:18 KITT

[KITTfan]

18th scale KITT and KARR look really great, 43rd scale front end could use resculpting to make it more curve down at the front.
Both scale KARR models seem to have one detail which still need attention, namely the silver paint at the rear bumper & rear quarterpanels, it goes too high.
Here's my ERTL KARR with corrected silver paint line, it was wrong in this model too:

[KnightSlider]

I don't know for Karr, because there is no good pics of the nose, but Kitt has the exact same nose as on the previous pics..
So only Karr will have the new nose?

[DanielB]

A couple more pics from the show:

[DanielB]

I've used Google to translate one of the German pages linked above, and it mentions the new "Super Elite" version of KITT. From what I can gather from a not very good translation, it will have the following features:

• Sound chip that talks and plays theme music
• Illumintaed dash with voice light that flashes in time with speech
• Illuminated headlights and tail lights

[imranbecks]

Damn... That looks to be the final released version of 1/18 KITT... Even with the off looking tires, it still looks pretty good and it overall looks better than the one ERTL did!

1/43 KITT and KARR looks good and "safe" if you will unlike the 1/43 KITT and KARR that Aoshima did many years ago which I think still looks to be the best looking scaled model of the cars ever made to this day, and a light up scanner too!

And as for the Super Elite KITT, the illuminated dash, light up headlights and tail lights is making me think twice if I should get the normal 1/18 KITT....hmmmm.... I wonder how they will light up the dashboard in 1/18 scale... Will it look like the real dash in the show? How authentic will it look? Or will it look like how the dashboard lights up on the 1/15 DST KITT...

[DanielB]

Personally, I'm not fussed about the sounds and lights. It will be annoying though if the Super Elite and KARR have corrected tyres - I'm not paying £350 for the Super Elite, but would like to have one with better tyres.

Might be an idea for Hot Wheels to send out replacement tyres to those who buy the normal Elite model.

[82KnightRider82]

Check out these photos of the, probably first delivered, 1/18 KITT. He got it as a gift from HotWheels along with the 1/43 model as his replica was the highlight of the HotWheels stand in Nuremberg!

https://www.facebook.com/myKITT.de?ref=ts&fref=ts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

~Yannik

[KittCARR]

Does anyone actually have the 1:18 Elite Kitt on hand yet? Specifically, anyone in North America?

Tons of pics everywhere of it.

Joey.

[Skav]

I saw those facebook photos today and thought the model looked okay but they would have to make the dash do something in order for it to compete with the Diamond Select version which I thought was impressive, particularly the light up voice box.

Are they making the dash do anything? Pop up headlights and a revolving licence plate won't cut it, especially for the price they are charging. The paint job on the Diamond Select also seems to be better as it has a better shine. The scanner light also needs to be good because the one in the testing video was a little underwhelming. It looked more like KI3T's scanner than KI2T's.

[DanielB]

It's a collector's diecast model, rather than a toy. Nothing else in their range has a light-up dashboard, nor does this model. Take a look at any collector quality model from top brands like Minichamps, Hot Wheels Elite and AutoART - none of them have those sort of 'gimmicks'. They're static models.

There will be a more expensive version of KITT coming out later in the year with illuminations. but this version only has a scanner light, which is all it needs to have. Pop-up headlights and a revolving licence plate I could live without, personally, although it's nice to have them - the Elite A-Team van didn't even have a sliding door on the side.

If you think it's too expensive, then wait a while. They will be available from German diecast dealers for less than the RRP in the UK. I've seen brand new HW Elite Ecto1s sell for £60 on eBay too, which is £90 cheaper than the UK RRP!

[MrSmith]

Personally, I'm not fussed about the sounds and lights. It will be annoying though if the Super Elite and KARR have corrected tyres - I'm not paying £350 for the Super Elite, but would like to have one with better tyres.

Might be an idea for Hot Wheels to send out replacement tyres to those who buy the normal Elite model.

There was tons of rumors surrounding the Super Elite Barris Batmobile before it came out, working lights, sirens, etc...all we ended up with was an extra detailed model, more metal parts etc...

So I would be surprised based on that, that the Super duper Elite KITT is any different.


I have my Elite KITT on order, nice sized representative example it will suit me just fine.

[imranbecks]

Looks nice! Can't wait to get it!

The chassis underneath the model looks weird though... It did not look like that in the show...What happened to the normal exhaust pipes and undercarriage??? I wonder why Hot Wheels came out with their own touch of how the car looks underneath... The re-imagined engine under the hood is nice since we never really got a clear look of it in the show, but the chassis was seen a few times in the show and it looked nothing like that....hmmm..

[DanielB]

More pis of KARR: http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww30 ... _Toy_Fair/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You can see the re-profiled nose in the first shot. It starts to dip down above the front of the wheel arch.

[Matthew]

You know, I've got to take my hat off to the guys behind this model. Those pictures on Facebook show that the engineering detail is magnificent, and I can't underestimate just how much research must have gone into creating a realistic undercarriage for functions like turbo boost. Hell, the ventral boosters are even positioned correctly to lift the front wheel ahead of the rear one in ski mode.

Matt

[imranbecks]

No doubt, it is very nicely done. They really gave it a lot of thought thats for sure. Was that how KITT was supposed to look like at the undercarriage? Too bad in the show, when we saw the undercarriage, it was basically the normal stocked chassis of a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, not forgetting the visible exhaust pipes which can be seen occasionally in almost all the episodes...

[tuske427]

No doubt, it is very nicely done. They really gave it a lot of thought thats for sure. Was that how KITT was supposed to look like at the undercarriage? Too bad in the show, when we saw the undercarriage, it was basically the normal stocked chassis of a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, not forgetting the visible exhaust pipes which can be seen occasionally in almost all the episodes...

Depending on what episode you watch. Some episodes they had panels covering the stock Trans Am details. Others had budget cuts and they used replica scale models. But I digress.. The chassis is based on how KITT is "supposed" to look. (Not the limitations of filming and limitations of a 1980's TV budget.) Check out a KITT kit sometime. They had chassis drawings. It's similar to that. (So is the 1:64 and 1:43 versions) Yet another detail that sets these apart from all the competition.

[tuske427]

Looks nice! Can't wait to get it!

The chassis underneath the model looks weird though... It did not look like that in the show...What happened to the normal exhaust pipes and undercarriage??? I wonder why Hot Wheels came out with their own touch of how the car looks underneath... The re-imagined engine under the hood is nice since we never really got a clear look of it in the show, but the chassis was seen a few times in the show and it looked nothing like that....hmmm..

Because KITT is supposed to be powered by a Knight Industries Turbojet with modified afterburners and the 8 speed microprocessor turbodrive. Not a corporate chevy 305 with 700R4 transmission. This model is based on what KITT is supposed to have for powertrain, not a production 1982 Trans Am is powertrain. The engine under the hood is a jet engine, not a v8, either.

I hope this is helpful.

[imranbecks]

Yes.. It looks very similar to the chassis shown on the KITT kit... Hot Wheels has done a great job replicating that look! They probably used the KITT kit as reference.. It also shows that the car is detailed not only on the exterior and the interior, but also the undercarriage... In the photo of the undercarriage at Facebook, it looks like there is some text there too... Very nicely done! I really like that its detailed that way!

[imranbecks]

The details on the undercarriage is really nicely done and I really appreciate that! Its all these tiny text and details that makes Hot Wheels Elite so special.. Their Ecto-1 also had tiny text and details which weren't really seen in the movie...

Look closely and you can see "WARNING HOT EXHAUST" as well as the Knight Industries logo on the 4 pistons