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Toyotas mostly don’t show up in the big self-service wrecking yards until about age 15, so discarded Scion xBs are just beginning to appear in U-Wrench-It inventories. Here’s a Scion Toaster covered with totally brutal airbrush murals, spotted in a Denver-area yard a few months back.
I can’t tell whether the front body parts got wrecked prior to junking, or just sold off to junkyard customers after arrival. These cars are rare enough in the cheap yards that they tend to get picked over very quickly.
The Scion story — Toyota’s not-so-successful attempt to make a “youth brand” — would be an interesting topic of discussion by itself, but what’s going on with the airbrush murals here? The image of some sort of blue demonic woman with bat wings, devil horns, and pupil-less eyes adorns both sides of the car, for starters.
The flames play over heaps of skulls, no doubt wailing in a thermonuclear and/or frostbitten Hell.
There’s an aftermarket “carbon fiber” hood with bulge and racy latches, too, plus sporty wheels.
You’ll find one in every car. You’ll see.
It’s no “Bite The Banana” Pontiac Aztek, of course, but I do have many questions about this car. If you can find some mention of its pre-junkyard existence online, let us know.
The kids must have gone crazy for this ad, a decade ago. Or not.
Perhaps some Devil Vampiress murals might have saved this poor xB.
The Japanese-market ads for the Toyota bB were similarly frantic.
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Stupid-durable and simple cars: port injected 1NZ, tried and true stick shifts and “outdated” 4spd automatic. Keep oil in them and you’re set. Not quite the 90s era A-series motors with easily-serviced timing belts and re-borable iron blocks (non trivial factor in the 3rd world where cars rack up astronomical mileage), but a solid package overall.
Oh that artwork! That alone should have been enough to keep this beauty out of the wrecking yard. Sadly, I am going to figure their was some sort of front end collision that did this gem in. I would say something cliche like the driver failed to pay attention while looking for their Vape device or straightening their flat billed hat and ran into a bro dozer, again, that would be profiling. So I don’t want to do that.
Tip of the hat to the artist…
Wouldn’t a “devil vampire” just be a succubus (female) or incubus (male)?
I always thought the xB’s were the quintessence of the “good ugly car”. The kind of car that achieved its goals so well that it didn’t matter if it was ugly.
Beat me to “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘succubus\'”.
See, playing RPGs is totally educational.
Vampire sucks blood. Succubus sucks other bodily fluid.
The last owner of this Scion yelled, “Free Bird” more then once at a concert
I’m thinking this guy was more of a GWAR fan.
Yes, that could be Mrs. GWAR on the side of that Scion
Naw, not nearly enough rubber prosthetics and bodily fluids.
Oof. I’m a 52 y.o. owner of an ’05 xB, 5MT with about 172K. I bought it from a USCG buddy who was transferring to Alaska (eh…right price at the right time). Coupla things:
1) It’s brutal on the hwy. High revving, tiny engine is loud.
2) Cornering with just a hint of it being damp out, and you will slide.
3) It’s a 5 speed and fun to drive.
4) The passenger space is ree-DIC-ulous! Tons of headroom and rear passenger space. It’s like a micro-bus.
5) Typically sloppy Toyota xmsn means it’s easy (and forgiving) to teach teens how to drive stick.
6) Terrific gas mileage! :) But, only an 11 gal tank. :(
This example looks like a couple dash pieces were raided. Plus, it’s got the 4spd AT…I can’t imagine how dangerous that would feel when trying to enter an interstate.
Agreed on all points. I finally got tired of the long-distance discomfort, but my 05 xB1 5MT was awesome for the 7 yrs and 70k miles I had it. At 6’6″, I had headroom to spare.
The only things that car needed was a passenger window switch at 2 months (dealer fixed it in 1/2 hour), and an O2 sensor ($75 at home).
The one featured in this story is a sad tale.
2) Cornering with just a hint of it being damp out, and you will slide.
That would be more due to the crappy tires you have on it and less due to the car’s design.
2) Sounds like a tire issue more-so than anything to do with the car itself, well the small/narrow OE tire size is working against you as well. I really like General Altimax RT43s for wet traction.
You guys may be right on the tires. My buddy just replaced them about 5 months before I bought it, though. However, he went with 1 size lower-profile than OEM. That was almost 3 years ago. I’ll be replacing with a set of true OEM size come December-ish and am looking forward to seeing if there’s a difference.
Definitely the tires.
OEM size is 185, I’ve had my box for 9 years and was running 195 for most of that time, never a problem. You will get sick from the bodyroll before your tire gives out.
I’ve ran Contipro extreme contact DWS , Yokahama S-Drive , Falkin 912 / 512 , all fine.
I live on a hill side away from city…the lack of power and highway torque was too much (little) to bear.
Doubt its a size issue (one side either way isn’t going to make much difference) Its probably age and being lower quality tires.
@greaseyknight – thanks for this. I thought it might be something like you mention.
The set on there now are “El-Cheapos” from Sam’s Club.
Truthfully, I’ll probably replace with same.
@scoutdude – roger that (what you said below). Thx.
Some tires just suck in the wet and while the private label tires are suspect even some name brand tires can have crappy wet performance.
Even if you don’t buy there I do suggest researching at tire rack. They have tests of many tires in all sorts of categories across the major brands so you can pick what fits the conditions you drive in.
My wife had a Scion the same color as the one above, with a 5 speed. That was the cheapest car ever to own, and it packed people and stuff like a minivan!
You definitely want cheapish tires or you want to bolt on a Toyota Echo rear roll bar. Sticky tires means the car rolls, as my son exhibited. Our Scion was in Pull-A-Part for a single month and got stripped of everything but the bodywork.
Check the craigslist in your area, and if there are any xBs for sale, about 75% of them are on a rebuilt title. It’s amazing how many of these ‘disposable’ cars got rebuilt.
I think they’re past their prime as a good used car because they’re getting scarce, but that raises the question, what used car on the market right now meets the same convergence of utility and cheapskatiness?
For some reason, I am suddenly reminded that I have seen an episode of Metalocalypse in a long time.
Succubus after my baby! Give the wrecking yard tree-fifty!
I’m picturing the mayhem this car would cause in suburbia- at traffic lights and just driving down the boulevard, as the hands of shocked parents trying in vain to cover the eyes of their equally shocked and curious children. What has been seen cannot be un-seen.
@87 Morgan- hat tip to the artist indeed!
The Little Trees “Black Ice” air freshener (if you could call it that) is the cherry on top for this demonic Scion.
Stuff like this always makes me wonder – WTF were they thinking and how much money was wasted here? Maybe wasted is the key word. I can only hope it was the artist’s car and they were using it as rolling billboard. The flame skulls have their place which is NOT on a xB, but a blue she devil? Ummm no.
Meh.. this car’s paint job doesn’t hurt me. Some people spend crazy money on art. Some people spend crazy money on their personal transportation. Some people would probably question my taste in a few things. Live and let live.
Whoever owned this car had the freedom to paint it this way, in all this glorious weirdness. You know what I have to say about that? #MURICA!
The Scion / Yaris platform is one of my all-time favorites. They’re primitive, crude cars, and start fishtailing horribly if the rear suspension bottoms out, but can take years of abuse without a complaint.
When our Yaris Verso fleet was replaced with VW Caddies at work, the maintenance costs skyrocketed. The tiny Toyotas were infinitely more durable than the supposedly rugged VW vans.
I had one of these for a couple years. I loved the space, the long throw stick, and the cart-like handling. I hated the low power and the suspiciously thin doors that would be as effective as paper in a side impact.
I remember how disappointing the new version of the xB was, also. Completely ruined.
These gen1 xBs were fantastic.
Scion’s problem was GII. Toyota took all the things that made gen1 great—small size, small engine, good fuel economy, and cuteness….and engineered those things out.
GenII had 2.3L instead of 1.5L, was larger in size, more thirsty, more expensive, and fugly. To understand the failure of Scion, one need only understand the points listed here.
Man, this junkyard find makes me pine for the good ol’ days of CrabSpirits backstories..