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The 2012 Detroit Auto Show is still more than a month away but Scion has decided to reveal its star attraction, the brand new 2013 Scion FR-S.
Essentially a rebadged version of the Toyota GT 86 sports car we saw at this week’s 2011 Tokyo Motor Show, the new FR-S features a number of attributes making us all giddy inside.
Namely, a lightweight and rear-wheel drive chassis, a punchy boxer engine fitted with direct injection technology, and one of the lowest centers of gravity found in a production car.
November 30 is the day the covers finally come off the long-awaited production versions of the respective Toyota FT-86 and Subaru BRZ concept cars, but in the lead up to the unveilings more and more details about the cars continue to emerge.
While both will share most of their body panels, a common rear-wheel drive platform, and a 2.0-liter horizontally opposed ‘boxer’ engine, it appears there will still be some major differences between two to help differentiate them in the market place.
The all-new 2012 Scion iQ minicar, for which we’ve just posted full driving impressions over at The Car Connection, starts at around $16K and earns an EPA-rated 36 mpg city, 37 highway, and a combined figure of 37 mpg.
But with so many vehicles now on the market that can get 40 mpg on the highway or more—the Hyundai Elantra, Hyundai Accent, Chevrolet Cruze, and Ford Fiesta are just a few—many American shoppers will simply look over those figures and then move on to another, larger model. Why not opt for a larger vehicle if you can, if it costs about the same and gets almost the same mileage?
Scion has the youngest buyer demographics of any brand. And for those younger drivers, the lack of Bluetooth in a new car is increasingly becoming a deal-breaker. So it certainly makes sense that Scion is stepping up to the plate.
According to Scion officials, all 2012 models—including the xB, xD, tC, and all-new iQ (which we drove this week but can’t tell you about quite yet)—will come with a Bluetooth hands-free calling interface, Bluetooth streaming audio, and HD Radio.
If you’re eagerly waiting for the first 2011 Scion iQ minicar to show up at your dealer, sit down and have a nice cup of tea. You’re going to have wait a bit longer.
Scion’s parent, Toyota, is delaying the U.S. launch of the iQ, originally scheduled to happen by March of this year, to sometime this summer.
Toyota’s Scion brand has released its first special edition of the 2011 model year into the wild–and it’s safe to say if you like teensy hatchbacks and the color brown, you’re in luck.
The new xD Release Series 3.0 may sound as if it needs an engineer to write a bug ticket, but it’s the long-ish name attached to the special version of the 2011 xD. This version gets body add-ons front and rear, and side skirts to match. The color? It’s “xPRESSO,” which violates all sorts of capitalization and spelling rules, all by itself. It’s also unique to this model. Carbon-fiber stickers on the B-pillars finish off the cosmetics.
When the Smart-like 2011 Scion iQ shows up in dealers next year, it’s likely to give the Daimler-built two-seat city car some heartburn.
The vice president of Scion, Toyota’s brand-within-a-brand, confirmed this week at the press launch of the 2011 Scion tC that the new iQ will arrive in the U.S. early next year with a Smart ForTwo-like package and much more functionality, like its unique “three-plus-one” seating and a more conventional CVT, as opposed to the Smart’s automatic clutch.
Everyone has opinions. But if you had to wrap up what’s happening in green cars today by naming three trends, what would they be?
The ever-eager publicists at auto-classified site AutoTrader.com sent us their list of three changes in the world of eco-friendly vehicles. We’ve reproduced them below, along with some commentary of our own.
Regular readers know we’re eagerly awaiting the U.S. arrival of the 2011 Fiat 500 mini-car, the very first fruits of Chrysler’s takeover by Italian maker Fiat.
Now it looks like yet another variant may join the range of Fiat 500 models in U.S. showrooms. Auto-industry trade journal Automotive News reports that a tall five-door hatchback model is being developed specifically for the North American market.
It’s official. As we anticipated last week, Toyota has extended its largest-ever incentive program through April, and it served to jump-start Toyota’s sales after recall woes that put the brakes on showroom activity in January and February.
The so-called March Sales Event helped Toyota finish March with 186,000 sales nationwide—second only to GM—with sales up more than 40 percent from March of last year.