There's nothing inherently unfair about choosing to make the most expensive car the "dud." The contestant is not disadvantaged in playing the game they're trying to win. That says nothing about if it was done this way or not, but something to think about before playing the S&P card. In fact, if it were setup by human hands, you could play with the contestants' normal tendency in playing the game. Ergo, you could put expensive cars in the early group of numbers, so they were less likely to be the contestant's final match. That's like putting the big slips in Punch a Bunch in "weird" spots.
-Jason