| Knight Industries | |
| Category: | Business |
| Continent: | North America |
| Country: | United States of America |
| State: | California |
| 1st appearance: | "Knight of the Phoenix (Part 1)" |
Knight Industries is a fictional business featured in the Knight Rider television franchise. It represented the main backdrop of the original 1982 TV series, Knight Rider, and first appeared in the program's two-part pilot episode, "Knight of the Phoenix".
Description & History
Knight Industries is a multi-billion dollar national conglomerate specializing in advanced research in the fields of mechanical and electrical engineering. It was founded by Wilton Knight and counts the Foundation for Law and Government amongst it subsidiaries. Knight Industries was responsible for the development of the Knight Automated Roving Robot, aka, K.A.R.R., which was modified Pontiac Trans Am with a molecularly bonded shell and an onboard artificial intelligence. The chief engineer on the development of K.A.R.R. was Charles Graiman. However, a programming error made the computer intelligence unstable and potentially dangerous. The project was put on hold and the car was placed in storage until a solution could be found.
Knight Industries went back to the drawing board and redesigned the project with the Knight Industries Two Thousand (K.I.T.T.), which was conceived by Wilton Knight himself. Although the car's A.I. was originally put into use for the United States government in Washington, D.C., Wilton saw a better use for it and had it installed in K.I.T.T. to make it the ultimate crime-fighting super-car.
Through the Foundation for Law and Government, Knight Industries took an active role in providing services for those in need. Foundation administrator Devon Miles had an active hand in the recruitment of a former detective named Michael Long who, after suffering a near-fatal accident), was given a new face and a new identity. He was renamed Michael Knight. On his deathbed, Wilton Knight pronounced this "lone crusader" as the driver of K.I.T.T., punctuating his wishes with the belief that "one man can make a difference". Michael Knight worked closely and diligently with the Foundation for several years as the sole driver of K.I.T.T. and fought injustice across the state of California as well as parts of Nevada, Texas and New Mexico.