Scion XB Cars Images Information

Add caption

Scion XB

Scion XB The Scion XB first showed up in 2004. An innovative campaign required interested buyers t Customise And order the car through a web site Cool and the XB was interesting looking. The XB was only available in California for the first year or so.
The XB was a small boxy minivan style vehicle with low profile tires and a good sound system standard. It had originally sold as the Toyota bB in Japan a small utility vehicle. Somehow It recalled the Honda City, a cool tiny Japan-only vehicle I saw being advertised when I visited there in 1982.

Subway ads paired the car with Grace Jones and Madness I seem to remember. There was something alien but no-nonsense about the styling.
The XB is surprisingly roomy inside with a lot of glass. It has a little 4 cylinder engine and so achieves gas mileage in the high 20s in town (they claimed 30mpg but the standards are being revised). The XB cost under $15K. A cool, different looking, economical car with a lot of room. For some reason it was the customization idea that was the marketing hook in the US.
They tried to sell it to the urban hipster street racing style type of person. Evil looking fat guys with goatees I don’t think that worked. I never see anyone remotely cool driving one, They seem to be popular with middle-aged folks who wear glasses. Is that how those middle aged people see themselves?
In 2005, Scion showed the T2B Concept car. It was a meaner looking XB, sort of chopped vertically. The automotive equivalent of the Robocop visor. After the wider release of the XB, It was available through 2006, when it was redesigned.

The new design seems to be based on the t2B concept but is stretched and rounded. The design is not as appealing, showing some of the Chrysler-style retro chopped and channeled lameness typified by the rat-faced Dodge Magnum.

Wikipedia has a thorough seeming history of the vehicle.
I hate the Dodge designs. They are sentimental and recall the kind of mannered ornamentation rejected by modernism back in the fifties. I can’t understand why Scion has gone this route too. It’s like a certain school of automotive designers was influenced by the chopped and channeled lowrider style. Strange to see that look across several companies. I don’t like what they’ve done to the XB. Maybe I’m just sentimental about modernism.

Scion XB

Scion XB

Scion XB