Hope everyone had a great holiday season and a happy new year! The year 2012 was a whirlwind one for us, and we've taken some time off to recover. Expect things to start to pick up again with new product releases and news from of the latest fan events this year.

So how've you been? Have you been enjoying your Diamond Select KITTs? Be sure to check out their latest YouTube video demoing the SPM KITT model, soon to be released!

Our weekly(ish) KITT Bytes - bite sized Knight Rider News:

• David Hasselhoff visited the LAPD Golf Tournament last weekend, arriving in his own KITT - check out this thread for more pics!
• Lifetime announces holiday schedule, including the Nov 10th debut of "The Christmas Consultant" starring David Hasselhoff [via Variety]
• Deanna Russo and CollegeHumor send up Katy Perry once again with I'm not Awake parody video. (and Happy Birthday to Deanna, on October 17th!)
• Diamond Select Toys is at it again with a Michael Knight 8" action figure, complete with detailed cloth costumes and a highly posable body. This is part of a new line of figures which you can pre-order now for an April 2013 release [via Articulation Times] Also you can bid on winning a 1:15 prototype at this eBay auction - proceeds to benefit Children's Hospital Los Angeles
• Knight Rider fan whom lost his job is auctioning off JoyRide Chrome KITT autographed by many including David Hasselhoff
• A new company Kimera, is seek to put the KITT into Siri, making our smartphones actually intelligent.
• Photo above courtesy of Jen Catano, who's driving her KITT on the Toyota Speedway race track in Irwindale, California!

As 2011 comes to a close, we just wanted to take a moment to hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, and will have an enjoyable new year!

We wanted to apologize for the silence here as of late. As you are sure aware, sometimes life takes you to crazy places that force you to take some time away. And while we've been working on amazing things in our absence (that we'll soon one day be able to share), it was unfair of us to do so without warning.

For 2012, on the year of the 30th Anniversary of Knight Rider, exciting things will happen. Can't wait to share the ride with you.

UK based automotive chain Kwik Fit, has a great new ad featuring KITT, voiced by William Daniels. This very cute ad is created by the ad agency DDB London.

KITT, David Hasselhoff's intelligent Pontiac Trans Am from the 1980s US drama Knight Rider, is to make a TV comeback in an ad campaign for the car repair firm Kwik-Fit.

The TV campaign, which Kwik-Fit said is about showing that it does "so much more than just tyres and exhausts", features the once unstoppable KITT getting a buffing while minus a wheel in a repair shop.

KITT's voice provided, as in the original series, by William Daniels. The campaign, by ad agency DDB London, breaks on Monday night.

More on the ad at guardian.co.uk

As we have mentioned in the past, the new sound stage for the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien was actually used for the original Knight Rider. Before the move, Conan mentioned this, and we knew it was only a matter of time before he did so again post move.

Last night Conan introduced "Gabriel" using the "Knight Technology" left in the studio, and as you can see - they're already butting heads.

[thanks to dhasselhoff.net for the alert!]

If you're a KITT owner and have a completed conversion, Star Car Central is looking for you. They've got a registration database going where they hope to have a complete registry for all Star Car vehicles like KITT. They help put replica owners with rental opportunities, such as appearances in movies for films like "Kickin' it Old School", on TV for the G4 channel, or parading down Hollywood in a parade.

The man behind Star Cars is Nate Truman, whom we had the pleasure of meeting this past weekend at Knight Rider Festival. Nate has a really interesting Knight Rider connection, one that we'll go into more detail in the near future. Just a little preview - he was the voice of KITT at the Universal Studios Theme Park in Hollywood.

Last week the Consumer Electronics Show (or CES) took place in Vegas. Mio, the company responsible for the Knight Rider GPS had a booth set up complete with a complete KITT replica sporting a Mio/Navtones GPS unit on the dash. Very cool high visibility display for sure!

If you already have one of these GPS units (which we've reviewed previously) and are looking for alternates on mount options - check out Arkon. All their Moov 300 mounts are compatible with the Knight Rider GPS and are very well made.

• Deanna Russo turned 29 this week, we wished her well.
• IGN had a pretty positive review (for them) from this weeks episode A Hard Day's Knight
• Knight Rider UK relaunched their site this week, bringing a fresh coat of paint and a bunch of updates about the new series. If you like your KR news with a UK slant - check out their site.
• The Gazette has an interview with Paul Campbell and his role as a clown in the new series: ""I think they're trying to keep me away from KITT as much as possible," the Knight Rider star whispers conspiratorially, referring to the show's infamous robot car. "I don't know why, but I hear them in the hallways. I hear 'Don't let him near the car!'"
• Bild.de runs down the top ten car-actors in film and TV history, KITT holds his own at tenth place.
• Sioux City Journal interviewed Justin Bruening, where he talks about he got into acting, the audition process as well as being a fan of the original:

  "I was the second person to read for 'Knight Rider,'" the 29-year-old says proudly. Producers cast him in a two-hour TV movie (viewed as a pilot for the revival) and strapped him inside a car.

  The movie got mixed reviews (even though it brought David Hasselhoff back as Michael Knight) and complaints about product placement. It was shot during the writers strike, however, and might have benefited from another revision.

  "I'm a fan of the original series and there were things I wanted to see in the pilot," Bruening says. "But we can't fit everything from a four-year show into two hours. Now, if we run five years, we can."

  In the intervening months, Bruening bulked up (one look tells you he's ready for those no-shirt scenes), studied stage fighting and learned how to do stunt driving.

  "I'm trying to do reverse 180s and slide a car into the camera without hitting anyone -- which is really nerve-racking," he says with a laugh. "It's not that I'm not comfortable behind the wheel, but if there's a group of 30 people standing there and I have to slide the car, I don't want to hit them." His stunt driver "can take a car and make it go in a circle all day long. It's amazing."

  The goal: To be able to do those stunts without help. Currently, he does 98 percent of the fights. "I've come out of them bruised and banged up, but nothing that wouldn't have happened anyway."

  When he goes home at night, Bruening often finds himself playing video games. Grand Theft Auto 4 is a favorite. "After not being able to crash cars all day, I go home and take it out on the game."

  Since landing "Knight Rider," Bruening hasn't had one speed ticket. "I haven't had any since college," he corrects. "And that was a speed trap."

G4's Attack of the Show recently aired an E! True Hollywood Story spoof on KITT. Dealing with the original KITT as if he were real, they talked about his rocky life after the series, with a particularly humorous scene nodding to David Hasselhoff and a hamburger.

It was Alex Wong (forum member n knight) who's replica was used for the filming. He had this to say about the experience: "First 2 hours was filming road shots me driving kitt and they were filming in the van next to me. then we headed to the studio and did more filming on the green screen. It was almost a all day shoot 10 am to 6 pm"

Check out Alex's website, or this YouTube video for more information about his KITT replica!

• NBC's media site is reporting that the last two Knight Rider episodes "A Knight in Shining Armor" and "Journey to the End of Knight" will be airing on NBC back to back starting at 8. However, TV Guide reports that only "Journey to the End of Knight" will air at 8pm followed by a repeat of Chuck. Viewer be advised.
• Justin Bruening, Deanna Russo and Sydney Tamiia Poitier speak with People about their roles and who's the biggest Hoff fan.
• Discover magazine speaks about the science behind 3D printing: "OK, so I'm impressed a little bit, too. I mean, a 3-D printer in the car may seem a tad gratuitous, but it could be handy when you run out of quarters for the meter. But this is technology we have here and now"
• MarionStar speaks with the people at RobotWorx about Katie and Lisa, the cool robots in the KITTCave: "A lot of what you're going to see in any type of television show or feature film is going to kind of delve into the realm of science fiction," Hall said, but added, "The scanning is not too far from the truth. There are robots in the automotive industry that do scan auto parts. Some of it is not really as far removed from reality as we think."
• NBC's blog for the character of Billy saw an update, where he talks about trust and his bucket list: "You can't trust anyone these days. I mean, if you can't trust a guy dishonorably discharged from the military, who spent time in prison, and now runs a bar that caters to an underground racing circuit that's actually a front for black market weapons merchants -- who can you trust?"
• Due to the success of the two hour movie airing in Australia, Channel 7 beings this weekend airing the series. The first episode airs Saturday at 9pm. [herald sun]
• We've posted the description for Knight of the Hunter as well as the title for the Halloween episode Knight of the Living Dead
• io9 wrote an article on how Knight Rider Teaches You How To Be A Man
• film.com talks about theme parties watching tv - for Knight Rider it's "Hot Wheels; traffic cones; a GPS (which is as close as we will get to our own KITT); and for nostalgia purposes, you must have this David Hasselhoff poster."
• This week marked the 24th anniversary of the third season premier "Knight of the Drones" This was also the return of Patricia McPherson, who was forced out of her roll as Bonnie the year before. Knight Watch has a special on it. [Knight Rider Archive]

• Forbes online has an amazing interview with Gary Scott Thompson. He talks about the difficulties in pleasing everyone and his experience bringing Knight Rider to series: "Also, everyone seems to forget we don't work in a vacuum here. We have to report to a studio and a network, which will and will not let us do certain things."
• SciFiWire had a piece on weither or not the characted of Carrie Rivai was still a lesbian like she was in the pilot, Gary Scott Thompson had this to say: "My inclination is to leave her as she was," Thompson says. "Why change it? But the thing about my argument is that, in the case of Anne Heche, she was straight, then bi, then a lesbian, then bi, then straight. If [Rivai] is actually bisexual, she would appear different ways, depending on the situation. Of course, in my book, that would make her a much more interesting character, much like Capt. Jack Harkness in Torchwood. If I could use Jack in Torchwood as a role model -- I would absolutely use him as a role model -- I love his conflictedness about... everybody. He's real cool." [Knight Rider Archive]
• SciFiWire talked with Paul Campbell who plays Billy in the about the new series and his character for a certain episode we weren't allowed to talk about yet...
• SciFiWire also has several interviews with Justin Bruening talking about how he and the rest of the cast has yet to meet Val Kilmer, Deanna Russo discussing her fight trainning as well as a smackdown between Knight Rider vs Legend of the Seeker
• ComingSoon interviewed KR stunt-coordinator Dan Wynands. "The one thing we do in Knight Rider, we do have a lot of green screen for when we put our principle actors in the car. I'm trying to tie them more into the real work we do. I've actually got some business to do this Friday with Justin Bruening who's our Michael Knight Rider guy, and I'm gonna tie him onto the hood of our Knight Rider car. I'm trying to bring some of the feature film world tricks to help sell our actors in there. It is a challenge."
• Knight Rider Archive has a summary up about the latest UK SFX Magazine's 5 page feature on the new Knight Rider.
• RadioShack has been announced as the exclusive retail destination for the Mio Knight Rider GPS until the end of October. You can read more on the device with our review and from Mio's website. The unit is also available via Amazon, where a percentage of your purchase goes back to support this site.

Press reviews of the premier episode and more after the jump!

When Knight Rider news falls through the cracks, our weekly KITT Bytes sweeps them up:

• MJKnight's somewhat weekly YouTube feature Knight Watch posted his 22nd issue and talks about "A recap of the road to the new series that will Premier next week September 24th at 8 PM only on NBC."
• Deanna Russo's official website has been given a slight kick ass makeover. Gone are some of the softer images that greeted you when you first loaded the site - now it's 110% Sarah Graimen badass. [Knight Rider Archive]
• SciFiWire , Interviewed Justin Bruening and Deanna Russo the discussion gets into their martial-arts tranning. Bruening warned about crossing Deanna: "To borrow a phrase, I pity the fool who ever tries to hurt her." [Knight Rider Archive]
• If you have seen the premier episode of Knight Rider, we suggest you check out out forum as there is alot of fun discussions going on such as this photoshop challenge, HUD Discussion, New VOX, Turbo Boost as well as the episode discussion itself.
• Knight Rider 2008 actor Paul Campbell was spotted last week racing the Nautica Malibu Triathalon. Campbell raced as part of a relay to raise money for The Children's Lifesaving Foundation
• NBC announced that they will have a digital compliment to the Knight Rider series this fall which includes: Fans will be able to investigate the back stories of some of their favorite characters in the Knight Industries micro-site. Plus, a new behind-the-scenes production blog featuring the writing staff and Billy's Blog will provide even more insight. Additionally, users will find an all-new KITT game and interactive Attack KITT and KITT cave.
• Stu Phillip's CD is now available on iTunes. Containing 40 DRM tracks from the early episodes of the series, it costs you only $19.99.
• We will be on 168 Hours of TV this afternoon at approx 5:30EST to discuss the rebirth of Knight Rider. Tune and call in!
• It was revealed that the KITT being stolen in Toronto last week was just part of E!'s promotion for the series, details that we've included after the jump. But below you can see KITT being spotted in the Ikea parking lot below.

This day in fictitious history, brought to you by Knight Rider Archive:

Today is an important date in Knight Rider mythology: 26 years ago today police officer Michael Long was shot in the face at point blank range in the Nevada desert.

And here we almost forgot to send flowers!

[Original Article at Knight Rider Archive]

One of the favorite past times in our forum recently has been to go over every Knight Rider episode with a fine tooth comb, and find the real life filming locations. With most often nothing more than screen caps, Google Maps, Microsoft Live maps, and Google Earth (with the occasional on the ground support to verify), they are quickly turning through episode after episode.

Currently pushing seven pages in length, the Locations thread has found spots from episodes such as White Line Warriors, Diamonds Aren't a Girl's Best Friend, Knight Behind Bars, Soul Survivor, Killer KITT, KITT vs KARR and many many others.

One of the most creative finds recently has been by our forum member Sue who tracked down the Knight Rider opening to El Mirage Dry Lake, where she proceeded to make this wonderful recreation of the opening credits, check it out:

If you have a keen eye for detail and are handy with geography - you should jump right in and lend a hand!

As mentioned in our forums last week Profiles in History is set to host a live auction on eBay where one of the items up for grabs is a KITT used in the filming of Knight Rider:

437. K.I.T.T. (Knight Industry Two Thousand) car from Knight Rider. (Universal TV, 1982-85) This highly-modified 1983 Pontiac Trans Am is an original screen-used hero car used during the second season of the hit TV series. Instantly recognizable with its working scanner in the front and highly futuristic interior, this vehicle was arguably the star of the show! Accompanied with the original ownership certificate listing MCA Universal Studios Inc. as the registered owner. For insurance and liability reasons the vehicle's identification number was removed by Universal (common practice for their film and TV cars) and it was subsequently assigned the in-house inventory control number of "1177" (numbers can be found on the driver-side door and under the hood).

More information on the KITT can be found at the auction page. Also a page detailing the restoration of this car can be found at Mark's Custom Kits restoration page which is a very interesting read in itself.

The estimate is ranging from $40,000 to $60,000

This eBay auction was recently picked up by BoingBoing and engadget.

More info on the Auction below