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Oprah Winfrey Gives Cars to AudienceSep 13, 12:36 PM (ET) CHICAGO (AP) - Talk show host Oprah Winfrey celebrated the premiere of her 19th season Monday by surprising each of her 276 audience members with a new car."We're calling this our wildest dream season, because this year on the Oprah show, no dream is too wild, no surprise too impossible to pull off," Winfrey said.Making sure the audience was kept in suspense, Winfrey opened the show by calling 11 audience members onto the stage. She gave each of them a car - a Pontiac G6.She then had gift boxes distributed to the rest of the audience and said one of the boxes contained keys to a twelfth car. But when the audience members opened the boxes, each had a set of keys."Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car!" Winfrey yelled as she jumped up and down on the stage.The audience members screamed, cried and hugged each other - then followed Winfrey out to the parking lot of her Harpo Studios to see their Pontiacs, all decorated with giant red bows.One woman stepped up onto the frame of a driver's side door, put her head on the roof and hugged the vehicle.Winfrey said the audience members were chosen because their friends or family had written to the show about their need for a new car. One woman's young son said she drove a car that "looks like she got into a gunfight"; another couple had almost 400,000 miles on their two vehicles.In other segments on the show, Winfrey surprised a 20-year-old girl who had spent years in foster care and homeless shelters with a four-year college scholarship, a makeover and $10,000 in clothes. And a family with eight foster children who were going to be kicked out of the house they were renting were given $130,000 to buy and repair the home."The Oprah Winfrey Show," which debuted in 1986, is syndicated to 212 domestic markets and 109 countries.

HarpoOprah is such a b-word.......billionaire

that is a very generous thing for her to do. i think she is a retard, but that was one heck of a gesture

Quote, originally posted by Salsa! »And imagine the guy who decided not to go today but go tomorrow instead, in other to take advantage off the Monday-only-20$-off a fridge sale at Sears!!!!The way I understand it, the audience was specially selected one-by-one to make sure they got people who really, honestly needed a car. Compiled from letters to the show and such.Oprah can afford it...she may be rich, but at least she does good things with her money.

The crappy thing is , if these people couldn't afford a car payment on a replacement car, how the heck are they going to afford the insurance on a brand new car?

Quote, originally posted by ebslopp »The crappy thing is , if these people couldn't afford a car payment on a replacement car, how the heck are they going to afford the insurance on a brand new car?you beat me to my comment... you give them a car and how do they pay to keep it on the road? Wish I was in the crowd lol, I could afford it. for a while anyway... lol

since the car is paid for they wouldnt have to carry comprehensive insurance. it would be a wise idea but they wouldnt have to they could do the minimum

Quote, originally posted by Kari »Oprah can afford it...she may be rich, but at least she does good things with her money.Per another news article:Quote » The $7 million giveaway came courtesy of General Motors, which provided the free Pontiac G6 sports sedans, a new line of cars, as part of a promotional deal with Winfrey's Chicago-based show, a spokeswoman for her Harpo Productions said.Quote »Each member of the audience was instructed to contact a Pontiac representative to personally customize the actual cars they will receive, allowing them to choose the color and features that come with a fully loaded model.

You can see a movie clip on her site:http://www.oprah.com/

Well, props to GM, then...heh. I would assume they probably get advertising in exchange, aside from the obvious advertising of the giveaway itself.

Yeah, in the video clip on the site oprah praises the G6...not that I blame her.They're re-airing it in the middle of the night...TiVo will grab it, then I'll put it up here for all to enjoy..

another quick comment about getting "free cars", no matter who gives who what, the recipient still has to pay tax on a gift if over $10g's. That means they have to pay tax on the car!!!still, better than the whole car price though!!

And if you can't afford the taxes, you can always sell the car, pay the taxes, and buy a cheaper car...perhaps maybe a Vibe?

Yeah, I was just thinking about that agbhyde. Whenever I see car giveaways I just thnk "well if they couldn't afford the car to begin with how are they gonna pay insurance?" I remember tacobell used to give away hummers and sh*t years ago in their contests...how the hell are we gonna afford hummer insurance??? lol.

It would be more practical to give away a Daewoo Inder Singh

This Oprah media event brings to mind the maxim about GIVING a person A fish, versus TEACHING a person TO FISH.I realize GM's not literally going to give these people jobs building Pontiac G6's, but, jeez, Oprah, how about spending the $7 million for training/education/childcare so (these) people CAN get better jobs (and presumably afford new cars, taxes, and insurance)???

Quote, originally posted by Mavrik »you beat me to my comment... you give them a car and how do they pay to keep it on the road? Wish I was in the crowd lol, I could afford it. for a while anyway... lolEDIT: I missed your post...oops.Quote, originally posted by agbhyde »another quick comment about getting "free cars", no matter who gives who what, the recipient still has to pay tax on a gift if over $10g's. That means they have to pay tax on the car!!!still, better than the whole car price though!!Unless Oprah or GM pay the tax, these people will also have to pay tax on these cars. And it will most likely be steep. I think for something like that (i.e. "winnings"), they will have to pay something like 25% of the purchase price. I can't remember, I would have to ask a friend who works for the IRS. From what I remember, these people who win on the game shows and win the lottery pay something like a 25% tax. So while it is a wonderful gesture to give people these cars, I do wonder how they will afford everything that will come with it.

On the news, it said GM paid all the taxes.

I heard about that this morning....damn I wish I could have thought of going...you know next year's tickets must be sold out by now.

Quote, originally posted by MadBill »On the news, it said GM paid all the taxes. Wow, so GM is footing the bill for all the cars AND the taxes? That's amazing, since everyone always likes to complain that American "big business" is so evil and never ever does anything good and must be punished/taxed out of existance.How will people afford the insurance? Well that sounds like a good setup for another episode of Oprah!As for being able to carry only a minimum of "liability only" insurance, that will vary from state to state and even among insurance companies. The ins company that I used to have wouldn't let me carry liability only on a new car, even though I was going to pay cash for it. They told me that they would only cover a car with "liability only" as long as it was at least a year old and had been previously titled. So I had to buy as new of a used car as I could find. It worked out well because that car ended up being my Grand Prix that I really liked and still miss.

I just watched the rebroadcast of this episode and I have to say, it was quite moving...The car part was the best though.

Quote, originally posted by Big_Red »I heard about that this morning....damn I wish I could have thought of going...you know next year's tickets must be sold out by now.She hand-picked her audience though, from letters of people who said they desperately needed cars. So it wasn't just the luck of buying a ticket. When you get tickets to her show, you basically apply for a range of dates and they select you for a show and send you the tickets. I would guess if you applied for one day and it was a day like that, you might not get a ticket at all.

very very good.. the g6 is not a bad looking car ..

Check out this story...at the very bottom it says that this woman didn't need the car, "Chaney didn't need a car. She was merely at the right place at the perfect time." So the story that everyone in the audience was picked because they needed a car, is not true. http://www.rockymountainnews.c....html

She may have been picked because of how much it meant to her to be there, though. She seems very appreciative and I like how she plans to "pay it forward."

News stories in recent days indicate that Pontiac only paid the SALES taxes. Recipients still have to come up with about US$7,000 in Federal income tax, based upon receiving the value of the car as a gift.So, some people are selling the cars to pay the taxes, then buying more affordable rides with what's left (~20,000)

Sounds like a golden opportunity to buy a Vibe to me!

Quote, originally posted by Kari »Sounds like a golden opportunity to buy a Vibe to me! Or a TC