knight rider online

I find it strange when you see kitt driving with his hood open...

I think it's to do with the outer shell they place over the frame of the car. It's been mentioned before so I expect others will be able to explain further.

Exactly.

What you're seeing is a shell that was placed over the car to protect it. If you look closely throughout the series, when sparks fly off KITT when being shot at, you'll see that the sparks are flying off this outter shell, not the actual body.

Somewhere on an old VHS, I have an interview with a guy (From special effects dept. or something) who actually had one of these shells on blocks and explained how it worked.

Look on the hood of this picture above and you'll also see little "knobs" sticking up. These fire off sparks during the shooting scenes to give the impression of KITT being hit by bullets.