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NBC's "The Pink Panther Show" featured the unique "Panthermobile" seen here throughout its broadcasts from 1969-1976. Designed by Jay Ohrberg, who is responsible for decades of TV and Movie cars, this custom creation is going up for auction in a slightly unconventional manner. More »
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With the Late Night Wars carpet-bombing NBC's 10:00 slot, the network's hurriedly scrounging for filler. One show they're not contemplating? The ill-fated cargasm, Top Gear USA. Was the pilot so horrendous it's unwatchable? We've got $5,000 to find out. More »
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Conan O'Brien introduced the Bugatti Veyron Mouse as a new Tonight Show character Thursday night, not because it was funny, but because it was "crazy expensive" for NBC. To be funny he'd have to crash it into a lake. UPDATED! More »
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Joining The Tonight Show on Craigslist is a person claiming to have Conan's high school era 1984 Volkswagen Rabbit GTI. The price? A Pope Car-like $95,000. And good news, according to the poster it runs "like a raped ape." More »
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In what would be the largest car crash in Autobahn history, NBC New York's reporting a 259 car pile-up near Hamelerwald, Germany. UPDATE! More »
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Ford CEO Alan Mulally was up early for a Today Show interview in New York with NBC's Matt Lauer. Lauer fearlessly probed Mulally, peppering him with a slew questions. Smiling like a Cheshire cat, Mulally non-answered every one of them. More »
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Austin, TX appears to be ground zero for the electronic traffic signs hacking threat, as the "top story" on last night's local news demonstrates. More »
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Transportation officials in Texas are "scrambling" to stop the "hacking electronic traffic signs" threat. Didn't we tell you not to play with the electronic road signs? This is why we can't have anything nice. More »
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Due to the failure of Knight Rider and expected production costs, NBC has decided to pass on Top Gear USA. The BBC's shopping the US rendition of the hit show to interested cable outlets. More »
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Just in time for the September 24th premier of NBC's new Knight Rider show, the local NBC news affiliate in Grand Rapids, Michigan has found a great way to shamelessly promote the show a woman claiming that her recently sold Mustang GT was bought to be turned into a real-life example of KITT for the show. Deb Fralick had to sell her beloved Ford Mustang GT for $19,000 after faced with bills from a life-threatening illness and several visits to the Mayo Clinic. We're not exactly sure how much time her car will actually spend on-set, as right now it's said to be in the Toronto area on a promotional tour. More »
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Somewhere between "Morphing" and "Transforming" is the very Team America-ish "Valmorphanization." That's the term we feel best using to describe what KITT's doing in this one minute clip from the new Knight Rider TV show premiering September 24th on NBC. As you'd expect, KITT is apparently fitted with a current Ford lineup-limiter, only letting him "valmorphanize" into Ford products. Which explains why he's able to "valmorphanize" into a Ford F-150 FX4 pickup truck rather than the more appropriate "Ranchero" form factor we hoped for when we heard about his plethora of new looks yesterday. More »
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It's official — "Turbo Boost" is back for KITT. One of the biggest disappointments in the Knight Rider made-for-TV movie was the total lack of KITT's signature, once-per-show super-move — turbo-boost. After getting the green light for series production, the new Knight Rider series has already calmed our fears the super-speedy feature was overlooked. NBC's released this short promo clip with a very un-Kilmer like KITT saying "just wait until you see my turbo-boost." We will, oh Ford Mustang Shelby GT500KR-bodied KITT, we will. [via KnightriderOnline] More »
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Alright, so there's this guy, Harvey Spivey, who's an efficiency expert. He lives the typical suburban life: wife, two kids, dog, minivan, self hatred. Basically, he's the total opposite of Edward Albright, a 2010 Chevy Camaro SS driving, multilingual, lethal operative. But get this: they share the same body. Whoa. More »
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Among the personalities planned for Top Gear USA, Eric Stromer is the "who?" among the three. So when he made an appearance on Adam Carolla's radio show, our ears perked up. After listening to the broadcast, we learned the plan for the show is not to do an American version of the British programme, but rather to recreate the British version with American actors. We also find out Stromer was the last to be chosen, after Carolla, and Tanner Foust, and that he will remain on his old show while working on Top Gear. The last thing we find out? Carolla and Stromer both enjoy disturbing innuendo. And someone in the studio said they had never seen Top Gear, was that Stromer?! (Thanks Richard) [Final Gear] More »
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After Obama's victory speech last night you'd expect the pundits to discuss meaning, rhetoric and intent. Instead, NBC's Brian Williams launched into a discussion of short track racing in rural Montana. Ignore, if you can, that Brian Williams is apparently an aficionado of a form of racing that makes NASCAR look like the symphony, and try and focus on the fact that Brian Williams would "give anything" to have a focus group of those people to see how they would vote. Although we'd hoped to leave the term "NASCAR Dads" behind after last cycle, are dirt trackers this year's Evangelicals? If that's the case, how come none (neither?) of the candidates are hitting up tonight's NASCAR Prelude to the Dream race? [MSNBC] More »
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The rumors of the demise of Top Gear USA may be exaggerated, but according to those rumors, parts of the pilot for the Top Gear USA project were filmed out in sunny SoCal on the runways of the decommissioned El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Although we've received no confirmation from BBC Worldwide or NBC on whether the pilot's filmed, much less when it may have filmed, there is a heavy amount of burned rubber on the runways — including what looks to be fresh rubber donuts. Of course, the airfield's been used in the past couple of years for everything from a driving event called the "Taste of Lexus" in September of 2006 to random acts of hoonage, and as we've no idea exactly when in the past few months these overhead shots were taken, we've no idea if it's "Gear" or just a bunch of kids running tricked-out Celicas. But if it is the track for "Gear" — and not just another kind of bull — anyone care to determine what the lines of the course would be? More »
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So despite the fact NBC "cancelled" their up-fronts this year, they still managed to put together some kind of lame event (we hear it was like a carnival or something) to drum up support for their prime-time lineup across the NBC Universal network-o-sphere. As part of that "alternative up-front", they've got a page up on NBC Universal's web site that pretty clearly shows they're soliciting advertisements for a "Top Gear"-like show. While certainly no proof "Gear" hasn't been cancelled, the news we got yesterday wasn't proof it had been cancelled either. More »
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With NBC announcing its upcoming program schedule, there's one omission that we found particularly interesting. Yes, it seems that the rainbow-peacock's version of the beloved BBC hit show Top Gear is nowhere to be found. While that's not to say that the show may not somehow show up at a later date, right now it looks like Gear is gone. Considering that this is the same network giving a green light to the new Knight Rider series based on the terrible made-for-TV movie, we're thinking that the planned 'merican-spec Top Gear must have really been a catastrophe. More »
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It looks like Jay Leno has some apprehensions about Top Gear America, and we're guessing he hasn't even seen the poorest imitation yet. In his column for The Sunday Times, he lists the reasons why he thinks the program is doomed (and he doesn't even mention Adam Corolla as host). Most importantly, he thinks the show is going to lose the edge it has because it'll bow to sponsors who don't like having their cars criticized. In addition, he feels as though the show is going to be produced by people not interested in cars. Don't believe us. Check out his conversation with producers below the jump. More »
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You've seen our first exclusive pics of the new KITT. You've seen our knee-jerk reactions in the live blog as we watched the premiere. But in case you missed it (or you avoided it), we've got the intro sequence of the new Knight Rider up and ready for you to watch as many times as you'd like to. Behold the CG! Watch the close-up beauty shots in awe! Attempt to read the font! Listen to the re-mixed theme music! More »
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Tonight's the first episode — err — part of the Knight Rider movie/mini-series/season, and we'll be live-blogging it live on NBC starting in a few minutes from the comfort of the Jalopnik world headquarters. So keep track of the Knight Rider tag to keep track of all of the Mustang-filled action all evening and keep track of the full live-blog between Hardigree and I after the jump: More »
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Yesterday, Ray and Wes met KITT in the flesh— er, metal. Today we bring you the video footage of us doing our best Hasslehoff impression during our exclusive Brooklyn rendezvous. The new Knight Rider made-for-television movie premieres tomorrow on NBC, so our test drive ride just came right at our peak of anticipation. And while we still kinda agree with the "never meet your childhood heros" rule, we've gotta admit that the supercharged Mustang GT in GT500KR clothing looks and sounds pretty sweet. More »
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Ray and I got to live out a major childhood fantasy of ours earlier today when KITT swung by Brooklyn and offered to take us for a ride. KITT's found new life not as an F-body, but as a Ford Mustang GT500KR. Well, a more accurate description would be a Mustang GT with an automatic transmission — the cast can't drive stick — a supercharger and GT500KR bodywork. They do say, "Never meet your childhood heroes, you'll be disappointed." In this case, they're only partially right. More »
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KITT made an appearance on the Today Show this morning alongside costar Justin Bruening to promote the new Knight Rider TV Movie. During the show it was revealed that David Hasselhoff will be returning as Michael Knight. Bruening also revealed the loophole that allows the new version to pick up where the old left off, apparently, KITT's true inventor was never identified. Oh joy, what a plot twist. More »
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Will Arnett is out as the voice of KITT in NBC's upcoming Knight Rider revival, having been replaced with the Iceman himself, Val Kilmer. Arrested Development star Arnett was forced to pull out due to contractual conflicts; previously he'd done voice over work for GMC. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=353790&view=rss&microfeed=true GM won't be renewing their "separate-but-linked" Olympic sponsorship deal with NBC and the U.S. Olympic Team once the current deal ends after the Beijing Olympiad next year. Well, maybe they figure since they won't be building any cars in the UK — the site of the 2012 games — they don't need to drop the dimes on a deal. Of course, maybe it's just really expensive. [Advertising Age] More »
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]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=250361&view=rss&microfeed=true Congrats to the General on helping to put up the ducats necessary to pay for NBC/Fox's new GooTube competitor. That's right, GM's going to be one of the first advertisers on the new online video collaboration between the fair and balanced Fox and the peacocks at NBC. And we're glad to see it, because we think the world needs more boldly moving automakers willing to agree to buy advertising on a platform that doesn't yet exist, and will probably quickly become filled with videos of cats playing piano, ninjas and you know, other randomness. We also like that Cadberry's buying advertising on it as well, because we like the chocolate eggs and stuff. – Ray Wert More »
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We've been laughing at the SNL skit "Dick In A Box" all week, even more so after NBC embraced the edginess of the Justin Timberlake sketch by releasing the "uncensored" version onto YouTube and NBC's own site. We were even more interested to see who would drop the marketing dough to get it's brand associated with such a member-filled box of musical goodness. It turns out not only is it an auto badge, it's one we'd normally never expect to be going after the internet generation— Cadillac! That's right, they're going for life, liberty and the pursuit of kids looking to catch a glimpse of JT's banana in a box — and with a very peculiar vehicle. As you can see from the picture above, it's the DTS — the biggest of the big sedans Caddy sells. Maybe the text under the video about giving "the biggest gift of all" doesn't mean anything in a box, but rather giving someone a Caddilac style gift? Talk about a December to remember — first a caddy, and then a dick in a box. – Ray Wert More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=223665&view=rss&microfeed=true As part of the automaker's "shock and awe" earnings media strategy, the General sent out their own general — Rick "Slick Willie" Wagoner — to speak to the world, or at least the world that watches the Today Show (that Matt Lauer's so dreamy!) at 7:30 AM, just minutes after the RenCen-based boys n' girls released quarterly numbers that were mixed, but yes, better than analysts had expected. However, we'd like to point out that "analysts" does include the word "anal." We're unsure what bearing that has on the story — but it was important for us to point it out. Oh and yeah, the video of little Ricky's above — which, we might add, he seemed to deftly parry Lauer's probe-like questions with, if not ease, than definitely after a two second delay. In addition to all that — you'll get a quick look at Miller's in Dearborn and some lovely punditification by Micki Maynard of the New York Times — who speaks for two sentences, and David Cole of the Center for Automotive Research (NAMBLA), who speaks for a few more. Enjoy — or at least try not to vomit. – Ray Wert More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=210162&view=rss&microfeed=true In case you missed our little rant last night, here's the recap: More »
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As folks who are privy to Chrysler Group's Firehouse blog, we're sometimes frustrated with the site's Detroit-centric view and other times impressed with the straight shooting that comes out of it. And we have to say this bit from Jason Vines — regarding a Today Show piece on gas prices — is worth sharing. Click through for a quick, clean stab at the mainstream media. More »
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