NBC's campy '80s car-and-driver show Knight Rider is being reborn as the syndicated Team Knight Rider this fall, but without syndie king David Hasselhoff behind the wheel. Though the new show's producers invited the beach boy back to play driving avenger Michael Knight, "they just wanted to hire me as the actor," says Hasselhoff, who earns megabucks for wearing various hats on Baywatch and Baywatch Nights. "I said: 'Are you nuts? Those days are over.'" After his unlikely success with Baywatch, Knight Rider's producers may want to heed Hasselhoff's advice on how to make a high-octane hit. "I really kind of created the whole relationship between me and the car," says the Baywatch lifeguard, "and that was the charm of the show. If they retain some of the charm, it could go. But if it becomes something more like nuts and bolts and hardware, then it'll get lost in the crowd."