Media post: Why the Car Became the Star Prize

The Price Is Right first gave a car away in September 1972, a Chevrolet Vega Kammback, with bucket seats, power steering, front disc brakes, and AM radio. At the time, this was a real grand prize.

Not much has changed, in fact. Today, a car is still looked at as a grand prize. The prize itself has remained the same; it has just evolved with the times. Now, there are even entire companies, like BOTB, that use cars as prize giveaways via raffles.

Why Cars Have Always Been Given as Rewards

A car works as a prize for several reasons. However, it has nothing to do with actual driving.

Firstly, to the majority of the public, a car is valuable. It also has a published price, so it’s easy to determine the value of the car. Often, a car is relatively large as well, making it ideal for posing the winning contestant in front of for marketing purposes. 

Adding to this, they’re transferable, insurable, and usable from the moment it changes hands. Someone who wins a car today can drive home right away. Seeing as most people drive, its value is generally quite universal.

Car manufacturers know these rewards double up as exposure as well. A car handed over on television is a product demonstration with an audience attached, which is why prize vehicles have often been supplied at or below trade price.

When the Prize List Was Capped

In the beginning, British television took a different route because the rules gave them no choice. The Independent Broadcasting Authority limited ITV game shows to £6,000 of prizes per week, and Bully’s Star Prize on Bullseye came out of that same budget.

At the time, this was enough for an affordable, British-made car, caravan, or speedboat. Second prize was often a car as well, like the Austin Metros. With such prizes, the show pulled up to 20 million viewers in the 1980s with just a £6,000 prize budget.

The cap, however, was lifted for commercial channels in January 1993, increasing the availability of cars as rewards.

The Other Reward Types

Though cars did dominate the reward category, there were other popular options as well.

Holidays were favoured a lot. On the Bullseye prize board, holidays sat in between fitted kitchens and carriage clocks.

Jackpots have always been there, including minor and major jackpots. These work as they can be used anywhere, from online bingo games like Deal or No Deal Bingo offering a minor jackpot of £450, or a national lottery offering a major jackpot of £1 million plus.

Property seems to be working well now, especially in the UK. Many game shows, raffles, etc., buy hard-to-sell houses on the market for comparatively cheap and then use them as large, jackpot-like prizes.

How the Prize Car Itself Changed

When car prizes came out in the 1970s from The Price Is Right, a Chevrolet Vega was a decent option. By the late 1970s, this was a Mercedes-Benz 280E, and by the late 1980s, a Porsche 944.

British prize cars ran at a different angle. They were held down by the budget cap for some time. However, once that was released, larger budgets became available, so naturally, the cars got better.

Still, to this day, many would be happy winning a car. It’s something we use daily, have a rough idea of what it costs, and can picture ourselves in automatically.