Hasbro has been doing some super fun crossovers with their Transformers brand, and apart from some of the GI JOE offerings, I’ve been staying out of it, at least up until now. We’ve seen Transformers Ghostbusters, Back To The Future, TMNT, and Stranger Things, and to be honest, none of the robot modes have really spoken to me enough to get me to bite. But then they tossed Knight Rider into the mmix and everything gelled perfectly. KITT is already a super-smart car with a personality, so giving him the ability to transform just makes sense. Plus, at one point Peter Cullen actually voiced KITT’s nemesis, KARR so it all kind of fits together. Anyway, I preordered this one and it just arrived this past weekend, so let’s check it out!

In all my 50+ years of enjoying toys, I doubt that I will ever love a package design more than I do the G1 Transformers boxes. I’m sure part of it is nostalgia, but there’s something about that grid pattern, the logo, and the red or purple deco, depending on whether it’s an Autobot or Decepticon. Hasbro has brought it back for modern releases before, with mixed results, but what we got here is damn near perfect. The character art is fantastic and I can’t even put into words the feels I get when I see the battle art on the back. I got my first Transformers toys before seeing the Sunbow cartoon so that art will always have a special place in my heart. Yeah, there’s an unfortunate Anniversary logo and multi-lingual scrawl on the back, but it’s as close as they can get. On the downside, I’ll go ahead and say that this figure should have just been named KITT and I really do not like the Autobot Knight moniker they gave him instead. But hey, I can call him whatever i want, so KITT it is! Anyway, the packaging is so good, I was super careful taking him out, because he’ll forever be displayed in the box. I’ll also note that you will need a screwdriver and three LR44 batteries to work the electronics and Hasbro didn’t feel like hooking us up by including them. Let’s start with the auto mode!

I don’t know what size class you’d call this, but he’s definitely bigger than your average Deluxe. In the original TV show, KITT was a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am and Hasbro did indeed partner with Pontiac for the licensing on this toy. The end result is a really nice looking car mode with a higher degree of accuracy than I’m used to seeing on these toys. The body is done in all glossy black and while there are seams from the transformation, they really aren’t that bad at all. That’s probably helped along by the fact that this toy features a very simple and old-school conversion design. The rims on the wheels are silver, the front signal lights are orange, the tail lights are red, and you get white fog lamps on each side of the grill. The windows are tinted blue, which is an interesting choice. Not sure why they went with that, but it adds a little color and I’m not against it. I especially like the Knight Industries logo on the back where the license plate would be. It’s a great looking car that holds together really well too.

The headlamps actually flip up, which is a very cool touch. I would have liked stickers showing some detail in the headlamps instead of them being all white. The same goes for the red tail lights, which are just simple paint. I do like the placement of the Autobot insignia down on the apron, as it hides it a bit. There’s a button off center on the hood that activates the electronics. Press it once and KITT comes online along with the pulsing red Cylon-esque scanner light, travelling left and right. Pressing it activates not only the lights and sensor sound, but also some dialogue from KITT. If you leave the button alone for a while, KITT will announce that he’s going off line.

Transformation is about as simple as you can get for a toy of this size and price range. It follows the classic G1 Datsun engineering pretty closely, both in the conversion and in the robot design. That’s not a complaint, mind you. Having the front of the car as the chest, complete with the door wings behind the shoulder is as iconic and beautiful as it gets for me. The proportions are good and I like the placement of the wheels on the outside of the lower legs and behind the shoulders. The robot mode adds quite a bit of color, mostly in the form of pale grey and an electric blue, along with some red paint hits on the lower legs. Meanwhile, the back fills out pretty nicely as well. I believe the official transformation angles the door wings up, but I prefer them swept straight back. On the downside, I cannot get his chest to lock into place very well at all, so it tends to shift a bit when playing around with him.

The portrait design is OK. I like the traditional silver face and the translucent red visor is pretty cool. I don’t dig how big the eyes are, though and I feel like the “helmet” could have been a little bigger. Aside from giving him a William Daniels-style mustache, I don’t know what else I was expecting. It’s fine.

And yes, the electronics still function when he’s in robot mode, exactly the same way as when he is in car mode. I dig the look of the swooshing sensor on his chest!

As for weapons, you get a pair of pistols and a rifle, and these can be combined by tabbing the pistols into the side of the rifle if you like. Both weapons are cast in black plastic and I do like the designs a lot. As for articulation, he’s got everything you would expect from a modern Transformer and a pretty nice balance too. He’s just plain fun to play with.

And here’s a quick size comparison with Earthrise Optimus Prime and Studio Series Brawn. Yeah, he’s really big and I don’t think he displays well with the recent G1-style releases. I could make it work with Brawn, but he shouldn’t be as big as Optimus. He also towers over the Deluxe Autobot cars. So, he’s definitely going to be displayed on his own, which is fine because he’s basically just a one-off in my collection.

I got Autobot Knight from Amazon for $49 and he’s still available and In Stock at the time I’m writing this. It’s a nice toy and a cool idea, but the price feels pretty steep on this one. He’s big and the electronics are well done, but some may be put off by the extremely simple engineering for a toy at this price range. But then the prices on the Ghostbusters and Back to the Future releases were pretty pricey too and kept me away. In this case, I have no regrets about picking him up, but then I will buy just about anything Knight Rider that I come across, so your mileage may vary.