History Series / ScrapheapChallenge

Although it is a British series, they did an American version known as ''Junkyard Wars'', which follows the original format of the show. There are also a number of spinoffs.

For the first ten seasons, the show was hosted by [[Series/RedDwarf Robert Llewellyn]], with a female co-host (Cathy Rogers for the first four, Lisa Rogers for the remainder). For the eleventh series, the host is Dick Strawbridge, one of the two team captains from the first series.

This final series changed the format significantly. Three teams had four weeks at home and £450 to build their machines. A fourth team consisting of the host, his off-sider, and someone who competed in the earlier seasons has 10 hours and £450 to build their own machine. The home teams compete and the winning home team takes on the host's team.

Four teams build a vehicle at home that has to pass a strict roadworthiness test. Over four weeks they drive their creation to a different scrapheap each week and modify it for that week's challenge. The winner is based on points awarded (Scrapheap Races) or the total time taken to modify their vehicle and complete the challenge (Scrapheap Races Rally).

A number of teams build their machines at home and then come together to compete. The winners then take on the Scrapheap All Stars, a team consisting of people who have previously competed on the regular show.

* CoveredInMud: In Lisa Rogers' first episode, TheStinger shows her being tackled into the mud pit that had been used to test the vehicles.

* MarketBasedTitle: ''Junkyard Wars'' in the United States; which was also the name for the American remake that aired in between the British made seasons. Which can get confusing as Season 3 of ''Scrapheap Challenge'' is also season 5 of ''Junkyard Wars''.

* {{Retool}}: The latest season is much closer to the 'Roadshow' format. Or to ''Geronimo''.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Each team in the second season of ''Scrappy Races'' (other than the returning Chaos Crew) seems to have been chosen to correspond to one in the first season:

A game show where two teams of engineering-minded people are set loose on a scrapheap to build machines for the challenge of the week. The teams are allowed 10 hours at the scrapheap to build their machines and one hour of "Tinker Time" before the challenge for some final adjustments. The challenges include flight, fire fighting, throwing cars, remote-control car fighting, car-sumo wrestling, digging, building tanks and that's just the tip of the iceberg. For some challenges specific items would be given to the teams (eg, manual coffee grinders for wind powered coffee grinders) or hidden in the scrapheap (eg, steam engines and boilers for steam powered cars).

For the first ten seasons, the show was hosted by [[Series/RedDwarf Robert Llewellyn]], with a female co-host (Cathy Rogers for the first four, Lisa Rogers for the remainder). For the eleventh series the host is Dick Strawbridge, one of the two team captains from the first series.

This final series changed the format significantly. Three teams had four weeks at home and £450 to build their machines. A fourth team consisting of the host, his off-sider and someone who competed in the earlier seasons have 10 hours and £450 to build their own machine. The home teams compete and the winning home team takes on the host's team.

Four teams build a vehicle at home that has to pass a strict roadworthiness test. Over four weeks they drive their creation to a different scrapheap each week and modify it for that week's challenge. The winner is based on points awarded (Scrapheap Races) or total time taken to modify their vehicle and complete the challenge (Scrapheap Races Rally).

A number of teams build their machines at home and then come together to compete. The winners then takes on the Scrapheap All Stars, a team consisting of people who have previously competed on the regular show.

* {{Kayfabe}}: The heaps have been salted with useful trash, but the most blatant was when a team found a partial roll of Mylar for a flying challenge. Whenever possible the item seeded was sourced from a specialist salvage. The crew stocking the yard also removed items that would make things too easy. This was sometimes done for purely practical purposes: for a challenge involving a steam engine, for example, improvising a boiler would be near impossible and dangerous, so a few certified ones would be 'planted' amongst the genuine junk. Likewise, that grubby old aircraft propeller you just found would have been a dirtied-up new one for safety reasons. A longer explanation can be found [[http://the-nerds.org/on-seeding.html here]]

For the first ten seasons, was hosted by [[Series/RedDwarf Robert Llewellyn]], with a female co-host (Cathy Rogers for the first four, Lisa Rogers for the remainder). For the eleventh series the host is Dick Strawbridge, one of the two team captains from the first series.

* CrossOver: There was one Britain vs USA crossover with Junkyard wars. While no British teams appeared in the US series, two US teams did appear on the UK series. [[http://the-nerds.org The NERDS]] were the first (and with a later special episode, the last), The [=MuleWrights=] were a last minute substitute when the Barley Pickers (a team of farmers) couldn't travel to the US filming site due to agricultural quarantine.