12 Of The Most Ridiculous Modifications From Pimp My Ride, Ranked

"Pimp My Ride" was a staple of MTV for several years, where people with beat-up cars could bring them to the attention of host Xzibit and West Coast Customs for a ton of upgrades. After "Pimp My Ride," Xzibit delved further into the entrepreneurial spirit. Meanwhile, West Coast Customs is still going strong post-"Pimp My Ride." However, the ultimate legacy of the reality series isn't instilling an automotive repair spirit into the masses. It's making people look back at all of the ostentatious, occasionally ill-advised, and always ridiculous things they'd upgrade the vehicles with. 

There were common themes across episodes, like installing TV screens and enhancing the sound system, but the mechanics would usually go the extra mile by also installing something specific to the car's owner, either something related to their jobs or hobbies. This resulted in some truly bizarre customizations, and for this list, we're ranking the 12 most ridiculous, based on the subjective measure of a writer who grew up on MTV and knew not to put some of this stuff in a car before he could drive.

The list is ranked from the upgrades that are merely odd, down to the ones that seem outright dangerous or just entirely impractical. Many of these modifications feel like they were just for show, and probably had to be taken out or adjusted further to make the car drivable. Let's reflect on the most unhinged moments "Pimp My Ride" gave audiences. 

The Volkswagen Thing is much cooler than most people realize, but one wouldn't know it from looking at Erin's car on Season 5, Episode 2 of "Pimp My Ride." As is the case with all vehicles featured on the show, it's a hunk of junk with paint peeling everywhere. Xzibit and the team at Galpin Auto Sports (which took over for West Coast Customs on the series starting with Season 5) were able to get it looking sleeker once again with a snake theme running throughout, complete with a terrarium in the back. 

Erin likes snakes, and the crew went to town on that idea. Snakeskin patterns were featured throughout the exterior and interior of the vehicle. To top it all off, there is a terrarium for Erin to put her snakes in, having mentioned owning a California King and a ball python earlier in the episode. Hopefully, that terrarium is sealed off tightly, as the last thing anyone needs is a snake slithering around inside while driving. But the pièce de résistance is the addition of a rock with a miniature TV inside the terrarium so that the snakes can watch TV. 

The question is, really, what MTV show would the snakes watch? For our money, it would have to be "RidiculouSsssssness."

If anyone needed some car help, it was Gaby on Season 1, Episode 14 of "Pimp My Ride." She had just broken up with her boyfriend, and outside of a yoga mat, her Toyota Land Cruiser was pretty much all she had. With a fresh yellow paint job as well as customizing the roof to turn it into a convertible, it definitely came out far more stylish. But all Xzibit and West Coast Customs had to hear was that Gaby was into yoga, and they went all out on transforming the back into a mini yoga studio. 

Complete with bamboo flooring, a fountain, and a monitor to watch yoga videos, the idea seems to be letting Gaby get in a quick stretch no matter where she is. The only problem is that the monitor is in the very back of the vehicle so she can't see it while stretching on the bamboo floor itself. She'd have to be outside the car to watch TV, which may be fun for tailgating. Aside from that, the floor itself just seems too cramped to do some of the more elaborate yoga poses. 

It remains to be seen how much yoga Gaby actually did in the back of her tricked-out ride. However, seeing how Toyota Land Cruisers retain so much of their value even when used means Gaby probably made out all right if she sold it after the episode aired. 

Jessica's AMC Pacer on Season 4, Episode 1 of "Pimp My Ride" was an utter disaster. The crew at West Coast Customs even found a rat living inside the vehicle, so there was a lot of heavy lifting involved. The first thing viewers might remember is the absurd yellow shag carpeting featured throughout the car's interior. Xzibit truly put it best when he joked, "Who killed Big Bird?" In addition to redoing the seats so that they look like creamsicles, the trunk of the Pacer was fitted with a juicer, complete with compartments to hold all sorts of fruits and vegetables. Did we mention Jessica was a nutritionist?

A juicer doesn't seem like a bad idea. Instead of swinging by 7/11 for an unhealthy soda, Jessica could make fresh juices for herself and any passengers. But the thing about fruits and veggies is that they don't tend to last long. It wouldn't take long for the food to start decomposing and making the inside of the car smell as bad as the rat droppings the team found in there initially. Jessica would need a regular rotation of foodstuffs to always have juices handy, which seems like more hassle than it's worth. 

Zero notes on the addition of crazy straws, though. Sometimes West Coast Customs got it right on the money.  

Limousines are supposed to give riders a taste of the high life, but that wasn't the case on Season 5, Episode 6 of "Pimp My Ride" when Joe's whip needed a makeover. His limo was in rough shape until it got a full facelift, complete with a 50-inch television set so that people in the back could watch whatever while getting driven around town. Of course, this leads to the practical issue of being unable to communicate with the driver, namely Joe, in the front. However, the crew went old-school to come up with a solution. 

They installed a pneumatic delivery system that allowed Joe to send messages to people in the back. These tubes were more commonplace decades ago to send messages throughout a building via compressed air. It's probably safer than texting ... maybe? Was the plan for Joe to write down correspondence while in the middle of driving to send to his passengers? Perhaps he could have some pre-written messages ready to go like "Arriving at destination in 10 minutes" or "Keep it down back there." 

That doesn't even get into whether passengers would pay attention to the tube and any messages getting delivered. One would imagine they'd be living it up too much to worry about receiving mail.

While Xzibit and his team would always try to bring a little customization to every vehicle on "Pimp My Ride," some things audiences could be certain would pop up in most episodes. One of those involved installing some kind of monitor within the vehicle. Normally, these would be inside the car or maybe in the trunk so that someone could sit outside and watch something when the vehicle's parked. But the team got a little wild with Josh's 1987 Chevrolet K5 Blazer on Season 5, Episode 15. 

Mad Mike and his crew put 7-inch LCD monitors on the Blazer's mudflaps. In a case of utter candor, Xzibit even said, "Dawg, that's useless." Who could possibly watch videos on a mudflap when the vehicle's moving, let alone when it's stationary? Someone would have to crouch down to see what's on the tiny screen — they would be better off just going home and watching TV. Seeing as the episode came out in Season 5, perhaps the team ran out of places to put monitors on a car and wanted to think outside the box ... or outside the cabin in this instance.

To be fair, Mad Mike did put a 30-inch monitor in the back of the vehicle, too. Hopefully, anyone who drove behind Josh after the episode enjoyed a little bit of a show on his mudflaps. 

Season 3, Episode 2 introduced "Pimp My Ride" viewers to Sara and her 1988 Chevrolet S-10. It's a rare example of multiple questionable decisions going into the renovation process. For starters, West Coast Customs installed a fog machine under the hood of the truck. Driving in the fog is already dangerous, so it doesn't make sense someone would want to make things even foggier for no reason. It definitely wasn't something to use on the freeway, but let's get into the other ridiculous thing added to Sara's ride.

The team transformed the bed of the truck into a pool table. The whole point of having a pickup truck is to have the extra space to haul gear, so hopefully Sara and her friends enjoyed playing pool often. As was noted in the episode, the head of the pool table is inaccessible standing on the ground, which would make games much tougher. They then point out how the rear window can be rolled down, so someone can just hop in the cabin and continue the game from there. Even with that workaround, someone is still crouching down and fitting a pool cue through a narrow window to make a shot. 

Seeing as the S-10 is one of many Chevrolet trucks to be discontinued, Sara's ride could easily still be a hot commodity. One can only imagine how much of a collectible those custom "Pimp My Ride" billiard balls would be at this point.  

Having flames come out the back of a car feels like something straight out of an action spy movie. And that's precisely what West Coast Customs tried to make a reality for Mary and her 1967 Ford Mustang in Season 1, Episode 6. The team had the not-so-brilliant idea of putting a flamethrower in the tailpipe, with the crew even roasting marshmallows against it. However, it couldn't last forever. 

Unlike the rest of the items on this list, the crew realized the flamethrower tailpipe would've been illegal to take on the road, so they had to remove it. They take it off before Mary even gets a chance to see her customized ride, which is probably for the best. No doubt some drivers on the road have gotten away with illegally installing such a system on their car, but maybe since the crew had cameras on them, they knew they had to play it safe. 

"Pimp My Ride" has showcased plenty of oddball modifications. What's interesting is that they knew they had to get rid of the flamethrower exhaust because it was illegal, but everything else featured on the show, from the pool table to the snake tank, was perfectly fine in the eyes of the law. 

The Ford Econoline is one of many classic Fords that deserve to make a comeback, and Xzibit and his team showed precisely what the van was capable of in Season 3, Episode 1. The vehicle's owner Josh was an accountant and rocker, so the idea was to bring some of that rock 'n' roll sensibility to the ride. And apparently, there's nothing more rock 'n' roll than hanging out in a hot tub after a show, so that's just what Josh got. 

However, while a hot tub sounds nice on the surface, West Coast Customs took out a large chunk of seating room to accommodate it. Seeing as Josh is in a band, he probably would have had to haul gear around with him, which could only feasibly go in the van if the hot tub were emptied. And it would probably need to be empty most of the time, unless Josh was fine driving around town with water splashing everywhere. 

More than likely, the hot tub didn't last. During a Reddit AMA, another "Pimp My Ride" participant, Justin Dearinger, said, "They actually take out a lot of the stuff that they showed on TV." Nothing online indicates what happened with Josh's hot tub, but there's a good chance he never even got to take it on the road. The same could be said with many of the items on this list, but that's not going to stop the onslaught of jokes.

In 1993, "The Simpsons" aired "Marge in Chains," which has a quick segment of a show within the show called "I Can't Believe They Invented It." The program shows off all sorts of useless inventions, including the Mobilier, the chandelier for your car. The joke is that it's pointless and stupid, and a decade later, the fine folks on "Pimp My Ride" made it a reality.

Season 1, Episode 8 brought in Danelle and her 1981 Pontiac Trans Am. It appears as though the team wanted to make things classier, which the car was in desperate need of, given the side mirrors were only hanging on with some duct tape. While a chandelier is classy in a living room, it just feels out of place inside a Trans Am. At least it had some obscure company, as West Coast Customs also put an espresso machine inside the vehicle. 

The chandelier in the Trans Am is one of the more notorious "Pimp My Ride" Episodes. It even came up years later when Xzibit was interviewed by HipHopDX. He had a good laugh about all of the absurd things the team did, insisting he had nothing to do with the customizations. At one point, he even asserted, "I didn't choose the paint. I didn't choose the theme. I didn't tell them to put a chandelier." However, as the face of the reality series, Xzibit will always be affiliated with the oddest car modifications of all time.

"Pimp My Ride" ended in 2007, so it feels only right to mark the end of such a legacy with a funeral of sorts. Andrew came onto the show with his 1970 Cadillac Fleetwood hearse. It's not a car Galpin Auto Sports sees every day, and they appeared excited to give it a more rock 'n' roll aesthetic. Of course, they stayed on theme with a dark black exterior and purple trim. And to really ensure the show went out with a bang, they included a coffin that doubles as a barbecue grill, complete with the skeletonized faces of Xzibit and some other guys on the crew.

Having a grill in the back of the car is probably good for parties, but one has to seriously question anyone who'd be willing to eat meat that came out of a hearse — think about what kind of meat hearses typically transport! The idea appears to have stemmed from Galpin accessories expert, Diggity Dave, who wanted to show some appreciation toward Andrew's love of cooking. Perhaps he should've told Diggity Dave he has a kitchen at home and doesn't need to have extra gas tanks lying around his car. 

Aside from all that, hearses aren't really appetizing vehicles. It's not like driving down the street and seeing a food truck whizz by. Although if Andrew did want to start a side hustle, he could always turn his hearse into a food truck and call it Burial Burgers.

It's hard to get dates driving around in a beat-down vehicle. Honestly, on Season 6, Episode 14 of "Pimp My Ride," all Justin needs is for his 1997 Toyota RAV4 to look a modicum better, and he'd be all set to show the ladies a nice night on the town. However, fixing up the inside was only part of the battle for Galpin Auto Sports, as they also hooked Justin up with candles and a chocolate fountain in the back of his ride to really set the mood. 

It's a testament to Mad Mike's team's ingenuity that even during Season 6, they were constantly finding ways to innovate and do things no one could see coming. While a chocolate fountain is nice, it's arguably even more cumbersome than a hot tub. That's just water, but heaven forbid hot melted chocolate spills onto the seat and then Justin has that to deal with. 

Sadly, it seems the renovated RAV4 wasn't long for this world. A report from The Huffington Post stated that Justin (who also did the Reddit AMA mentioned earlier) ended up spending $20,000 more to get his car just the way he wanted it. Unfortunately, the car eventually went up in flames. But it wasn't a total loss, as Justin admitted, "A lot of girls noticed me more."

Over the years, "Pimp My Ride" installed all kinds of wacky and special things inside and outside cars. And then, there's what happened in Season 6, Episode 15 when Therese, who worked as a nurse, came on with her 1984 Ford LTD Crown Victoria. Having an EKG reading on the side of the car is one thing (it ensures she never overlooks her vehicle in a parking garage, if nothing else), but Galpin Auto Sports went the extra mile by installing a full CAT scan machine in the back. 

A person could actually lay on the slide-out tray and be treated to whatever entertainment they wanted, as the tube was outfitted with subwoofer speakers and TV monitors. There's no word if Therese ever actually medically examined anyone with her new gear or if it was all just for show. Even if it was for aesthetics, a CAT scan machine would add excessive weight to her car, which can't be good for fuel economy. 

However, it's a perfect encapsulation of what "Pimp My Ride" is about, with @MariaZeigler_ posting a clip to X, formerly known as Twitter, while writing, "Found the cat scan episode of pimp my ride... yeah this show was sick Lmfaoo."

People tuned into "Pimp My Ride" to see what absurdity would arise. It's a notorious relic of the 2000s, and while the modifications may have been ill-advised or dangerous, they were always iconic.