MTV’s Pimp My Ride UK – the number one car modification show – has ramped things up a gear with a half hour special programme Pimp My Riot Van. Host Tim Westwood and his team of A-list mechanics take on their worthiest challenge yet as they put a battered old police riot van to good use transforming it into a music-based youth centre on wheels.

Specially commissioned for London-based youth charity XLP, backed by EMI and the Metropolitan Police, the riot van undergoes a Transformers-like reinvention and is kitted out with some of the smartest, slickest and most high tech equipment the team has ever used. Enough to fulfil any wannabe musician’s dream, the piéce de résistance is a fully functioning recording studio, complete with a mixing desk, pro-speakers and subs, wireless laptops and even a sound proof booth for budding singers and rappers to lay down their latest lyrics.