Damnit, Scion should've shipped you off to Miami, then we'd have have some good pics!

 

lol like i said i wish i coulda gone, and of course wouldnt have posted under this name hehheh Tomas would have me executed

 

It looks like many styling cues for the xD were taken from this concept car at the 2006 Geneva show:

http://www.autoweek.com/files/specia...r/pages/01.htm

 

my take....

the xD ... the color was hot and it was shown with a lip kit on it. from the scion actual corp guys they said “you will be able to purchase the cars with the kit already put on it at the factory" so that’s a good thing... especially since it was made for a dual exhaust too.... very interesting.... The styling was much like an xa cross between the doge caliber a little were it already has lines if you wanted to two tone your car... basically it was made for two toneing although its getting over played...

So starting with the front... has a nice aggressive look were the hood actually curls down more in the front and has the scion logo on the hood instead of the grill. The head lights were okay looking... kind of a sleeker xA light hopefully someone will make projectors for it... the mirrors had the turn single lights on it... 18s were on this bad boy... the back hatch looked just like the xA pretty much although the taillights were skinny and looked great... When the hatch was opened... had probably about another 6in deep to work with over the xA...good sign for the ones who love the bumping in the trunk... the rear seats had 2 buttons on each side of the 40/60 design... not totally sure what both due... we will find out.. when the rear doors were opened... they had cup holders built into the doors... more leg room over the xA... When the front doors were opened by the lovely model, everything caught your eyes... the speedometer tach and everything were set up in front of the wheel this time...too bad i just got used to looking in the middle of my dash now... lol... the stereo was a new scion built head unit. 2din with a lcd screen like that on a pioneer premier head unit... as you went down the center consol the a/c and heating controls looked more like they were fiber glassed in like on some show cars were they looked like pods for the controls rather than it being flat... Also the center console ended there and cut back in towards the engine give a lot of room on the bottom between the dash and the shifter to play around with..."my personal favorite part on the car next to the color!!" The shifter was set up the same way as the xA and current xB... When the hood was opened up there was the assuming of god... there’s not going to be any room to work on within the car.... as you have heard it was close to a 2.4L in there taking up most of the engine compartment.... The reason the SCION engineer came in to shut the hood was because... it was a dumby engine.... Scion corp guys said they are still finishing up the design of the engine and instead will be the 1.8L and be able to fit a turbo in the compartment as well..."the turbo is going to be able to fit on the final product" All in all this was a great machine... still on the toss up on wither I want to start parting out my car for the August arrival or not ... But I will wait to hear what the price tag actually came too...

hopefully this gave some more insight to the new model and not just Blah Blah Blah to your ears... all in all it was a great car...

 

i have a feeling alot of the cool features u mentioned will be elimanated to keep the price range. too bad, but well see what happens

 

What we saw in Miami were the new models, not concepts.

 

Not concept cars, and further along than prototypes: they are "pre-release" models, which means what we saw is what we get subject to minor production changes.

For example, in software you have the 'alpha' then 'beta' then 'release candidates' then, at last the final release candidate. The final release candidate is the one being set up on the production line, subject to line changes that have to be made so they can be put together efficiently, or any last minute problems found.

A feature that is difficult to do, or costs too much for the end benefit is often dropped at that point. Sometimes a new way of doing something efficiently, or a new 'feature' that is easy and costs essentially nothing will be added.

What we saw were the release candidates for the new xD and the xB2. What we see on the streets in 6 or 7 months will be very very close to what we saw. All the 'big parts' are pretty mich set. Only the little nagging details are still suject to last minute change.

Tom

 

prototypes is more like it

 

Hey Tomas, am I remembering incorrectly or did the xD kind of look like the new JDM Toyota Blade...?

 

I didn't inspect the xD all that closely, but IIRC the headlights were a lot 'wilder' and the rear roofline3 came back farther, squaring up the back a bit more. I'm also not sure it had quite as much front overhang. It was a great color, though!

Tomas

 

I thought it was the Blade too from toyota.. they have a nice webpage on it http://toyota.jp/blade/index.html . I can't read japanese so don't ask me.

 

I think you're right - it does kinda look like that blade. Mazda-ish on the back, even. I hate, H-A-T-E the thing they do in the front now with the Toyota logo on the camery - and I think it had something similar. I think they gave us free alcohol for this reason though - to not remember all the details...

I DO remember though that there were "2ZR-FE" stickers on BOTH engine covers for the xB2 and xD. Also VP said superchargers would be available.

 

When asked, those in attendance said it was NOT the Auris.....Blade is just an Auris with larger engine. Exterior and interior compare side by side and dimensionally, they are twins. Very few differences.

 

I think the color was matador red from the lexus gs . . . i have gawked at that color here at the dealership many many times, so i am hoping to see matador red on the xD as a factory option.