I picked up the Round 2 MPC reissue Knight Rider kit this week. It has some good news and some bad news though...
First, the good news:
It comes with a nice decal sheet featuring KITT's dashboard layout from early season one (featuring the original voice modulator light, not the graduated bars version) and the KNIGHT license plate and you get not just one copy, but TWO so you could theoretically do up two models with it. I'm a little confused by that as I expecting two sets of markings on one sheet to have alternate stuff, such as perhaps a KARR modulator and a KARR plate, but paint can make short work of that. A decal for the scanner eye is also provided for those that don't plan to put a scanner light circuit in the model (in my case I may do a quick and dirty transfer of the circuit and batteries from the Hallmark KITT ornament into the MPC kit).
Secondly, the kit still seems to have all the original bits seen in the previous offerings. The dash, center consoles and overhead switch box are all there, plus many of the custom parts such as the side pipes and the like.
Third, it has BOTH clear and tinted windows, so you can do up your KITT however you want.
Now the bad news...
The body shell is still the late 1980s (1989 Turbo Firebird Indy 500 pace car I believe) version without the side vents and the trim strips. It looks like that tooling was altered when AMT took over and I believe it was due to AMT/Ertl wanting to use the molds to make the Indy 500 pace car from that year (which had a turbocharged Buick V6 under the hood). That being said, I think it should be possible to alter it back. I've got a couple of my early issue trashed KITTS in my stash, so I can Dremel the side vents out of them, cut holes in the new body and do a graft. If one checks out model car swap meets, it should be pretty easy to find a donor MPC Firebird or Knight Rider "glue bomb" for dirt cheap to scrounge, assuming somebody doesn't do a resin set. KITT in the later seasons seemed to have the door strips, so those could stay. But removing them should be pretty easy to do also if one didn't like them.
The interior floor BTW also has the altered center console, so the KITT box won't integrate fully either. But, looking at the two configurations, I think that can be fixed with a little sheet styrene as the shapes are certainly more the same than different.
The short of it is, except for the coloring of the plastic (black in this case), the parts provided are essentially the same as the 2002 AMT offering. Do the extra bits provided make up for the work that has to be done to accurize the model? Well, that is down to individual choice. In my case, I say yes. But your own mileage may vary. One determined modeler CAN made a difference though if they want to accurize their kit and I don't see anything that would totally kill the idea of doing it with this particular version.