Bigger, heavier Scion xB improves on the funky cult object. Scion debuted in 2003 as Toyota's bid for the hoodies-and-Vans set.
From the beginning it was clear Scion's brand mandarins had taken a big screwdriver to the collective heads of Gen Y, a demographic so savagely targeted from the moment of birth as to make it intensely allergic to anything like conventional advertising.
Scion -- as successfully as any car company since Ferrari, I'd say -- generated its own owner culture, with Scion concerts, ring tones, car shows, clothing, sponsored exhibitions, Second Life environments and other insidious bits of affinity marketing.
To help deepen a sense of ownership, Scion sells its cars monospec, which is to say, with almost no factory options.
The second-generation xB is, by the finely calibrated scales of postmodern design, less winsome and ironic, less a thumb in the eye than a finger in the wind of the marketplace.
The new xB is softer and more aero-sophisticated. The front bumper has been integrated into the front clip.
Most prominent, the cabin glass is narrower, squeezed to a tapering, tinted, gun-slot aperture between the higher beltline and the lower roof.
This makes the xB look lower, even though the overall height is the same.
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