Pimp My Ride

The show picks young car owners (requirements limit participants to ages 18-28, according to the recent audition rules) living in the Los Angeles/Southern California area. An episode of Pimp My Ride generally begins with the participant showing his or her car off, and convincing MTV why it needs to be "pimped". After this segment, rapper Xzibit shows up at the participant's house, takes a look at the car himself, makes wisecracks about the particular things that are wrong with it, and promises the owner a complete makeover of the vehicle.

After examining the car, Xzibit takes the cars to a custom body shop, where the shop team generally replaces most of the components and rebuilds the interior and exterior from scratch.

Each car is a custom "pimp", tailored to the personalities and interests of the owners. Work usually includes new paint, accessories, chrome, tires and rims, and internal electronics (even, and especially, DVD players, video games, TFT screens of excessive size and other top notch gadgets). Most changes are only cosmetic, and mechanical work is generally only done to enable the car to run. However, the show has replaced entire engines with new high performance motors. Customization and extra gifts usually total around US$20,000 (though the show usually doesn't put much emphasis on costs).

At the end of the show, the car is revealed to its owner, as well as all the details of the renovation and the custom features; in addition, the participant is usually given a gift somehow related to the car or the owner's hobby.