For a sneak peek at Toyota's brand-new Scion, Nads and I waded our way through L.A.traffic to a go-kart racing park called Speed Zone. I'm embarrassed to say that I had to restrain this guy that I hesitate to call my boss and physically escort him into the meeting room where some nice people from Toyota and Pioneer were patiently waiting for us (or maybe not so patiently). It seems that, after fending off frustrated art directors and other corporate types not to mention lovely L.A. traffic, Nads was all-too eager to take out his aggressions at the racetrack. More on that later.
First order of the afternoon was to learn all about the Scion bbX. Scion, they told us, means "descendant." And bbX, they told us, means black box. Dude, Black Box! Really bad dance techno from the early 90s! My fave. Now it was Nads' turn to be embarrassed as I whipped up my best boy-band rendition of the Running Man in front of all those corporate types and proceeded to belt out the first few stanzas of "Strike It Up."
Seems that Toyota, intent on breaking out of its boring small car box, decided to build one. A box, that is. At first sight, the lack of curves quite disturbing. But the more I looked, the more I liked. The design has a huge amount of functional appeal; it's a form dripping with pure function. Because when it comes to storage, the box has no superior. Think about your dresser drawers. Or kitchen cabinets. The shape of your microwave oven. Clearly, you can cram a lot more into an object that doesn't have big curves and swoops getting in the way of usable space.
Rather than wrap this efficient storage box in yet another amorphous shape, Scion decided that the exterior of the bbX would mimic its interior. In a design era where ovoid seems to be the rule, it's refreshing to see such a clean and simple shape. And yet it's edgy because it's all edges. All the squared-off lines give it nice, strong shoulders and a crisp, confident, European stance. And because there are so few of them, the curved elements in the design (17-inch wheels, wheel arches, front bumper, and windshield) really stand out.
The interior is most remarkable due to the enormous amount of space it offers. The bbX has towering headroom, enough even for Jonny on the worst of hair days (with a ten-gallon hat, front seat or rear). Stylewise, the interior borrows from the best Toyota Echo cues (center-mounted speedo, round Echo-style air vents, lots of storage areas) and promises a plethora of options for personalization in terms of trim and color. Powerful Pioneer-engineered six-speaker sound with acoustically-tailored Scion Sound Processing will be standard; no wimpy rental-car two-speaker AM/FM/cassette is on the menu. Seems like the Scion brand managers, who want to sell these cars to the youth of America beginning in June of 2003, are paying attention. They told us the cars should be priced "significantly below $18,000" and will be equipped with a huge list of standard features. The only options will be color and transmission. Again, it seems like these guys are paying attention.
Speaking of paying attention, Nads forgot to take his afternoon Ritalin and was foaming at the mouth by the end of the presentation. He was the very first one out the door, cut in front of everyone in line for the road course go-kart track, and then refused to exit his air-cooled V-twin-powered machine until he mastered a 1-minute 58-second lap time. I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite so proud. Except for myself when I dusted him twice in the drag-racing karts. Yeah, baby. Grace under pressure. You should see me do 10-minute abs.
To show just how customizable the ridiculously spacious interior of the bbX is, Pioneer installed a host of electronics products in the bbX you see on these pages. As you can tell, it looks cleaner and tighter than your first girlfriend. And it sounds about as furious as her ex-boyfriend before he beat you to a pulp in a jealous rage.