Actor Justin Bruening has a new job - and, as a result, a new car. Or, if one wants to get technical about it, two new cars. But only one is garnering all of the attention these days - even more attention than Bruening, in fact.

That's par for the course when you're the tough guy behind the wheel in the new incarnation of the '80s cult hit TV series "Knight Rider." In which case, the wheels are the star of the show, and the driver is pretty much a sidekick. Not that Bruening has problems with that arrangement, he just wishes his cohort were a bit more, say, magnanimous.

"He's a little standoff-ish," jokes Bruening about his vehicular pal, the KITT 3000. "You have to coax him into opening up and talking."

Actually, the 29-year-old Bruening is having a blast continuing the legacy of the original Knight Rider's star David Hasselhoff and his souped-up Pontiac Trans Am. Bruening plays the estranged son of Hasselhoff's Michael Knight, so this version is as much sequel as it is remake. That said, Bruening notes that this is not your older brother's "Knight Rider."

"When I watched the show in '83, it was great. But when I went back and watched 'Knight Rider' reruns, that show would never hold up today," says the Nebraska-born actor. "It was such an amazing show with such a great premise of a talking car. Nobody's car talked. So that was the coolest thing on TV. And now we're drenched in reality, so we need realistic storylines.

"We have a talking car, so obviously we have something that's a little absurd," says Bruening. "But our episodes are based on realistic stories and KITT has just become another actor on our show. It's like a buddy-cop film."

More has changed. Whereas the urbane William Daniels (also of St. Elsewhere fame) supplied the voice of the KITT 2000 back in the day, today the calm tones of Val Kilmer give the 3000 its personality. The biggest switch, though, is KITT's physical presence.

Modern times call for a modern ride - in this case, a Shelby Cobra GT 500 KR version of the Ford Mustang, fully loaded with all of the fixings, including a few that aren't offered to the usual consumer, such as turbo-boosting and a "transformer" mode. "That's pretty neat," says a beaming Bruening. "He transforms not onto tall robots, but into other cars. It's a form of camouflage, a tactical advantage. He can transform into any other car, which is a neat aspect of the mission. Sometimes my character doesn't even know it's him."

Bruening knew who KITT was the first time he saw him last year before production began on the two-hour "Knight Rider" film that would spawn the new series - because he already had his eye on the Shelby. After several years of living in car-unfriendly New York City, where he had a regular role on the daytime drama "All My Children," Bruening and his wife, actress Alexa Havins, returned last year to Hollywood, where the car is king. And Bruening knew just what car he wanted.

"I wanted a Shelby Cobra when I moved back to L.A. and I thought that Lexi would buy me one for Christmas," he says. It worked out conveniently that I got a job where I get to drive one every day, so now she doesn't have to buy me one."

Instead, Bruening stayed within his new vehicular family, obtaining a 2008 Ford Mustang Bullitt after filming on the "Knight Rider" movie wrapped. He admits that appearances did play a role in his choice. "Driving a Camaro around probably wouldn't be that good," he says, even though he has an uncle who exclusively drives the Chevy-made muscle car. Bruening considered buying a standard Mustang GT and fixing it up to his specifications, "but I looked at what I wanted to do with the car, I basically had just designed the Bullitt. It was already made, and it was perfect."

Well, almost perfect. Bruening did some of his own modifications, but tried hard not to to muck up the Bullitt's "unassuming" quality.

"I didn't get fuzzy dice or a TV that comes out of the rear-view mirror," he says. Instead, he focused on the sound system, installing a large subwoofer in the trunk; and he had a Hurst shifter installed for aesthetics as much as anything else, though he does note that it's "sacrilege" to drive a Bullitt with an automatic transmission. (By the way, his wife can't drive a stick, a situation Bruening doesn't seem terribly displeased about.)

And there's an extra advantage to Bruening owning a Bullitt. He actually has bragging rights within the motorized "Knight Rider" family. In the universe of the show, KITT can go up to 300 miles per hour. But in the real world, in a road race between the Bullitt and the Shelby Cobra KR, it's another story. "My car would actually beat the car that we have on the show," Bruening says with pride. "I believe so, anyway - I haven't tested this out yet." Sounds like a very special episode in the making.