Challenge

[DE88]

Unless I'm mistaken, the cars offered on game shows from the mid '90s to the early 2000s were usually worth between £10,000 and £15,000.

...

There were exceptions: some of the non-showcase cars on Bruce's Price is Right were in a lower price range, but still fairly expensive (between £6,000 and £10,000), and of course, Bullseye ended in 1995 still offering Protons, Minis and Metros.

Well that's hardly surprising considering they were made in Birmingham at the time at Longbridge, so Central didn't have far to go to find a source of cars to parade on their shows as prizes, and it obviously continued when they moved to Nottingham.  IIRC Celebrity Squares was "populated" with cars from the plant too.

The point I was trying to make there was that Bullseye was still offering cheap cars in 1995 when other game shows were offering rather more expensive ones.

It's certainly true, though, that Central didn't have to search far and wide for a source of cars to offer on their shows.    (Mind you, Vauxhalls and Suzukis were also offered on Celebrity Squares - a co-production with Grundy, of course.)

On to the 2002 series of PYCR. As I've said, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who considers this to be its own version of the show, rather than a continuation of the '90s version - what with the "qualifying" game at the start, and the end game being played solely for cash, as well as the different title sequence and the rave remix of the theme tune. (It did use more or less the same set as the 1999 series - but then the Michael Aspel and Liza Tarbuck versions of Blockbusters were also filmed three years apart and used more or less the same set, and nobody considers the latter version to be a continuation of the former, do they? Especially as Asp's version had adults of all ages, while Liza's had sixth-formers as in Bob's day.)

I don't think it's unfair to say that PYCR 2002 was ITV making it up to Brucie after dropping Cards in the first place (and Bruce's Price is Right too). One wonders, though, just how happy he was hosting it - I wouldn't be at all surprised if he hated the "qualifying" game, with two couples ultimately only turning up to draw a card (and what would have happened if the first two couples to come on drew the ace and the king, or indeed the two and the three...). Though he spoke of the possibility of winning over £100,000 in the end game (£136,000 was the theoretical maximum), I'd like to think he knew this was virtually impossible and that even £20,000 was a tremendous amount to win. And the "qualifying" game also meant that there was less time for him to really do his thing - and less time, too, for the two couples who did play the game proper to show how entertaining *they* could be.

Two other observations:

(1) Even in 2002 "And here they are, they're so appealing; OK, dollies, do your dealing!" sounded antiquated.

(2) When a pair was turned over in the main game, the "euuuugh" sound wasn't played (though Bruce still said "You don't get anything for..." and so on). Probably not a coincidence that when a pair was turned over in the end game, the couple didn't lose any money...