Scion, like BMW before it, has embraced the concept of ''art cars,'' turning its products into canvases for contemporary artists and taking the results on exhibition tours. An exhibit of new work using Scion models — as in scale models — opens at The Showroom NYC gallery in Manhattan on Thursday. ...

Scion hired artists who were well known -- at least to the under-25 urban crowd -- to apply their individual styles to the form of the car. But unlike BMW’s collection, in which all the originals were full-size vehicles, some of these artists worked on scale models of current Scions. Many just applied graphics, though some modified the body shape, too. ...

Scion hired artists who were well known -- at least to the under-25 urban crowd -- to apply their individual styles to the form of the car. But unlike BMW’s collection, in which all the originals were full-size vehicles, some of these artists worked on scale models of current Scions. Many just applied graphics, though some modified the body shape, too.

Other artists, including customizers whose usual medium was the car, expressed themselves in new and creative ways using a full-size xA, xB, or tC as their canvas. The results are featured in Scion’s print advertising and as Art Cars in those thick catalog-lifestyle magazines distributed at auto shows. The customized cars are often displayed as well, as they were in New York recently. Scion, as BMW did years earlier, broadened the exposure of each featured artist.

But then Scion went further, encouraging its owners to create their own Art Cars. Its cars have always had simple shapes that lend themselves to customizing, especially the tC, the only one of Scion’s model designed exclusively for the brand. A new stripped-down model, the tC Spec, makes it easier and less expensive to begin that process of personalization.

A new stripped-down model, the tC Spec, makes it easier and less expensive to begin that process of personalization.

From the looks of the Scion Fuse design study that made its debut at the New York show last month -- a car that could be the tC’s successor – the policy of custom-friendly simplicity will continue.