From the July/August 2026 issue of Car and Driver.

Yo dawg, we heard you like car culture, so we wrote this story about a TV show that became a part of it in the 2000s. Whether it was a cannon that shoots salmon, a hot tub in the back of a van, or a door-mounted slot machine, the modifications MTV's Pimp My Ride visited upon ratty hoopties and heaps were unique and often bizarre. Hosted by rapper Xzibit, the show ran from 2004 to 2007 in the U.S., customizing a total of 72 cars over six seasons.

Galpin

The pimping came courtesy of West Coast Customs and, later, Galpin Auto Sports (GAS). Given the wildly impractical nature of many of the mods, and the fact that fixing the cars' underlying mechanical wretchedness was not exactly the focus, it is not surprising that a good number of these machines were quickly sold by their young owners or have expired in the years since.

As Jake Glazier, whose Buick Century was in season four, explained on Reddit years later: My car was a piece of junk. What they did was make my piece of junk sound exceptionally awesome, which is great. Just not great enough to drive on roads. Glazier sold his Buick soon after for a tidy $18K to MTX Audio, the company that had supplied the JackHammer subwoofer that took over the back seat.

Michael Simari|Car and Driver

There is a snake tank behind the rear seat of Kersten and Erin Falk's VW Thing.

Michael Simari|Car and Driver

And yes, there is a TV inside the tank.

While the GAS era did incorporate more mechanical improvements, some owners still preferred cash to a finished car. Just because you do a lot of work does not make a car valuable, GAS's Beau Boeckmann says. The kids would sometimes ask, Would you give me X for it? GAS bought back four of the cars and still has two: the 800-hp biodiesel-powered 65 Impala (from the Earth Day episode featuring then California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger) and the last Pimp My Ride car, a Cadillac hearse complete with a roll-out coffin containing a barbecue grill.

One Pimp My Ride car still with the same owner is Erin Falk's Volkswagen Thing from season five (highlight: a built-in snake terrarium outfitted with a two-inch TV). In the years since the series went off the air, Falk's husband, Kersten, has emerged as perhaps the show's most dedicated chronicler, posting nearly 100 videos about Pimp My Ride on his Brainshatterer YouTube channel.

Galpin

He has also been on a quest to find out what happened to each car. Working with friend Mike Hammond, Kersten says he has learned the fate of about 50. A lot of them are not drivable, he says, but adds: We have tracked down 17 of the cars that are still with their pimpee owner.

What drives his interest in the show and its rides? Growing up, he says, I was a big fan of Herbie the Love Bug, Knight Rider's K.I.T.T., cars that had something special about them. Calling the cars of Pimp My Ride special may be a bit of a stretch, even if we all agree they made for especially entertaining TV.

Joe Lorio has been obsessed with cars since his Matchbox days, and he got his first subscription to Car and Driver at age 11. Joe started his career at Automobile Magazine under David E. Davis Jr., and his work has also appeared on websites including Amazon Autos, Autoblog, AutoTrader, Hagerty, Hemmings, KBB, and TrueCar.