Tag Archives: xB

The End of The Scion Era

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It’s sad to hear that the Scion marque has reached its end. With just over 13 years of production, the brand made a huge impact on the sporty compact car market, and has helped manufacturers like ourselves by being able to offer suspension packages for very customizable platforms. After all, that was the appeal of the Scion line- customization. And affordability.

However, with our economy hitting another rut, it seems to not be in Scion’s favor. So, as of August this year, we will no longer see Scion badged vehicles. Toyota will be carrying over a few of their current and new platforms. Whether that affects the model names is not known yet. Regardless, it will be great to see the continuation of some of these Scion vehicles under the Toyota marque.

Let’s take a look back at some memorable Scion projects we had our hands on.

How about our very own Scion xB widebody, built by our previous Marketing Director Philip Chase

DSC_0013v2_printDSC_0030v2_printPhilip had a completely custom, steel fendered widebody kit made for this xB. From what we last heard, this car is still roaming around at several car shows. This xB used a set of our [now discontinued] Hybrid Dampers, which was a ride height adjustable damper kit, but also had a hydraulic setup that allowed you to adjust ride height ~2 inches on the fly. Definitely useful considering this custom body kit gave the car very little ground clearance.

Then we also have our R&D Engineer’s personal Scion FR-S which first used a set of MONO FLEX dampers, then eventually used our SUPER RACING dampers. Shu was a regular attendee for local track days. Originally owning a Honda S2000 with our SUPER RACING dampers, he eventually wanted to get an FR-S and try to develop it into a great street and track car. It was actually his daily driver for a while. While he was using our SUPER RACING dampers, it eventually became a test bed for us in developing damping for this setup.

shu bw

We also have the Rally xD, which was a Scion Racing program vehicle spearheaded by Gordon Ting

xd pikes 3 (Custom)xd pikes 2 (Custom)The Rally xD used dampers made through our SPECIALIZED DAMPER Program. Since rally type suspension wasn’t readily available for this car, this program was the best solution. In total we made two kits, one based around our HG type dampers and one loosely based on our Gr.N dampers.

Its final iteration was a take on some classic Toyota rally cars from the good ol’ days

xd nefr 3 (Custom)xd nefr 1 (Custom)

We also have the Scion tC of Edgar Coria and his wife Tiffany. They use our STREET BASIS dampers for their widebody 2nd gen tC.

Edgar Coria

One of our good friends, Five Axis Designs, has been involved with Scion since their inception, and they were responsible for prototyping a lot of vehicles for the Toyota group. Being that we’ve had a great relationship with Five Axis, a lot of their projects had TEIN suspensions.

Troy, owner of Five Axis was one of the first to get our TYPE FLEX dampers for the then-new FR-S

Troy's FR-S

Before the Scion iM reached the US shore, we helped Five Axis with suspension for this concept iM

proto scion im

Another FR-S built by Five Axis for CAPCOM. Yes, the producers of the Street Fighter series of video games! Also on one of our FLEX damper setups.

capcom fr-s

Five Axis has also built some pretty crazy concepts around the tC, xA, and xB platforms, such as these cars

tC 2 tC

xA 2 xA

We’ll be sad to see the Scion name disappear. However, for many of us, we were able to witness something pretty great for our generation of automotive enthusiasts. We got to see the era of customization grow into something never really seen before for the sport compact car market. It pushed the envelope in both show and race, with builders thinking way outside the box (like the guys at Five Axis!). Kudos to the Scion marketing team on getting their name spread all throughout North America and beyond. For us, Scion will be in some of our fondest of memories.

A lil FUN @ the office

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Thanks to Troy from Five Axis everyone at the office gets to have a little fun.

One of our Authorized Dealers, Five Axis, just happened to drop by to pick up some TEIN Product and had a little surprise. It seems that HPI Racing manufactures a RC car copy of the Scion xB with Five Axis lip kit and wheels. The original vehicle that Five Axis produced had our Basic Coilovers.

Everyone wanted to play with it the first day and I had opened it and unpack it. It felt like Christmas morning all over again. I was excited to actually take it out for a spin but unfortunately the AA batteries for the controller were not included and I could not find any in the office. 🙁 eeeerrr I had to wait one more day to have a little fun.

Thanks to our Marketing Manager we got batteries the next day (thanks Phil). Everyone got a chance to have a few laughs and enjoy the RC car.

I unfortunately did not have great control of the car and was accidentally crashing the poor car into poles and pallets in the warehouse, thankfully no damage was done to the vehicle. I will practice to get better handling the RC car. I think we are planning to make a time attack course in the warehouse or parking lot.

We had a good time with the car we even put it on a Dyno….lol, sort of.

Past TEIN USA Demo Cars

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Was looking through some older pictures on our server and found these. Some of the modifications may be considered out-of-date but at the time these cars were built this was the trend.

2004 Scion xB – built in 2004, debuted at SEMA 2004.  Featured TEIN’s Hybrid Wagon Dampers which allows for ride height adjustment from the cockpit. Greddy turbo kit, custom metal widebody, Bride seats front and rear, custom dash, Racing Hart wheels, and complete Lightning Audio setup. Was sold a couple times, last seen with new a paint job and many of the goodies removed.

1999 Nissan Silvia S15 – initially built in 2005, debuted at SEMA 2005, and went on to continually be modified/ revised/ re-tuned until 2007. 650WHP, RB28DETT (stroked), V-mount, OS Giken 6-speed sequential transmission, TEIN Super Racing coilovers, C-West widebody, stitch welded, crazy roll cage, too much to list. Now owned by a private party in California.

2006 Honda Civic Si Coupe – built in 2005, debuted at SEMA 2005. Custom metal widebody, custom turbo setup, custom red suede interior, TEIN Mono FLEX coilovers, Enkei RPF1 Type RC wheels, etc… Stolen while on the HIN tour and later recovered completely stripped.

2006 Volkswagen Golf GTI mk. V – built in 2006, debuted at SEMA 2006. Featured TEIN Euro Dampers, BRS widebody, host of Seibon Carbon parts, APR Turbo upgrade, JE pistons, Carrillo rods, Bride Gias Carbon Kevlar seats, custom Rothschild Fabrication roll bar, dual composite NX nitrous kit, and custom AutoArt VX wheels. Sold to a used car dealership, not sure where this car ended up.

2007 Toyota Yaris 3-dr – Built in 2006, debuted at SEMA 2006 and competed at Super Lap Battle Finals 2007 (driver Andy Hope pushed this car to a 2:08.091). Burnout bodykit from Japan, custom painted graphics, Super Charger kit, KAAZ LSD, Custom Rothschild Fabrication roll cage, Bride Bucket, Defi Meters, and custom spec TEIN Super Street coilovers. Currently sitting inside one of Toyota’s warehouses.

more past demo cars to be revisited in the future…