2011 Scion xD: Further Proof 2008 Didn't Come to Canada Until 2011

It’s not a brand that’s drawn a lot of fanfare in the early days of its Canadian offensive, but one has the feeling that Toyota’s hands may be a little bit full these days. Scion, the youthful, entry-level brand that serves to bracket its parent company in a position opposite Lexus, has enjoyed quite a bit of success south of the border, where it’s funky and practically styled vehicles have been almost unanimously well-received. Giving would-be-begrudging Corolla buyers something a wee bit more entertaining, the Scion brand’s incursion north of the 49th parallel has been substantially quieter. Then again, when you have a vehicle lineup that looks like that found in a Scion showroom, there really isn’t a terribly urgent need to advertise.

Case in point: the xD. Although not quite as polarizing as the incredibly boxy xB, the diminutive xD is hardly less eye-catching, and if there’s ever been a better usage of the term pug-faced, I’ve never seen it. The front end is a smorgasbord of lines diving and dodging their way towards various points of termination across the car’s face in grand JDM-inspired fashion. From the Yaris-like front hood closure that dives underneath the Scion logo to the somewhat awkwardly protruding lower half of the grille that imbues the car with that bulldoggish overbite, I found myself waiting for a cartoon discussion bubble to pop out of the grille opening and comically exclaim “GRRRRR!” on the xD’s behalf.

Thankfully, the rest of the car isn’t quite so overdone. Trying to accent the car’s stance and give it that wide, planted look that’s en vogue, Scion’s designers have clearly opted to adopt the classic two-box style for the xD; overtly placing the greenhouse on top of the lower half. As a result, you can trace a pretty solid line around all of the door tops and around the back, which is all well and good until you realize that the lower half actually tapers upward at the rear of the car. This results in a rear window that is shorter than the average gas station squeegee’s width, and flanked by two relatively wide C-pillars, both factors that play a role in reducing the amount of rearward vision. Although not as noticeable well under way, tasks like parallel parking get a bit trickier when the only rearward perspective available is through a tiny porthole placed high off the ground. Throwing the car in reverse, you end up aiming towards your blind spot and are forced to simply wait for the windshield of the car bracketing the back of the spot to appear in the back window. And even once you’ve corralled the little bulldog into the spot, you end up struggling to get it centered since the only rearward point of reference you have may be a few inches of windshield and roof.

Of course, from the inside, all those concessions to style seem at odds with the xB’s insanely logical layout. From front to back, everything is incredibly well thought out and rendered in the simplest form possible. Take the gauge cluster for example; there’s a nifty combined speedometer and tachometer front and centre with a simple multi-function LCD digital readout all packed into a flowing plastic extrusion of the dashboard. They’re all clearly visible through the tilt-adjustable steering wheel, but have no extraneous lights or readouts, and the same goes for the three-dial climate control system and stereo. Maybe it’s a result of the car’s built-to-a-price-point design (it borrows more than a few parts from the Toyota parts bin) and subsequent simplistic nature, but you can’t help but get a feeling of familiarity from the xD’s interior, like you’ve driven it before, stabbed the radio buttons before, tried to convince the heater to thaw out your frozen feet before.

And then, just as you’re starting to think that this is going to be just like every other small car you’ve driven, albeit with a slightly more canine style, you come upon a corner. Or perhaps a stop sign. Anything that requires a serious retardation of forward momentum will do, really, as it’s here that you’ll discover that the xD has the unique ability to bend the laws of physics. And not in a good way. Be it braking for a yellow light, slowing for a four way stop, or rolling down a mildly curved roadway, the car simply doesn’t have an ounce of mechanical grip. Sure, you expect a subcompact to understeer when pushed hard, but you don’t exactly expect it to happen at less than legal speeds. In one instance, I was forced to brake for a yellow light. The maneuver may have initiated full ABS intervention as the car struggled to come to a stop, and yet the effective deceleration was so slight that the handheld GPS device sitting on the dashboard wasn’t even cajoled into moving an inch. The only explanation that I can reach is that the force of gravity must have been acting differently on the few thousand pounds’ worth of car than it was on the couple pounds sitting on the dashboard. Although some blame can be heaped upon the car’s heavily siped winter tires, the stock suspension seemed to toss the car’s weight around at the slightest of inputs, overloading whatever tire happened to be the unfortunate subject of the situation. Conveniently, Toyota will be more than happy to outfit the xD with a serious doze of Toyota Racing Development goodies ranging from stiffer sway bars (a good idea) to lower springs (maybe) to a machined shift knob (bad idea… have you ever felt how cold those get in the winter?).

Then again, perhaps my perception of the car’s unwillingness to stop or change direction was more a function of the expectations raised by its glowering countenance. Driven like the Yaris it’s based on, it settled down quite a bit and merely required the daily business be carried out at slower than usual speeds and with longer than expected braking zones. At this relaxed pace, I could enjoy the standard stereo (it’s quite good for a base unit in a car of this ilk) around town, but struggled to really get comfortable in it. First off, other reports will cite a dearth of road noise as one of the car’s larger detractors, and I can tell you that winter tires don’t help any. Furthermore, although the car’s interior feel’s quite spacious, leg room is not ample for someone six feet or taller, and the non-telescoping steering wheel just makes things a bit more awkward. On the flip side, having a driver’s seat that’s placed near to the firewall does help rear seat legroom, as does the rearward placement of the back seat itself. Also, the reclining rear seats are an always welcome feature. And although they do impinge upon the rear cargo room when left in place, both sides of the 60/40 split rear seat can be slid fore and aft as well as folded flat for longer parcels.

Although it might look quite the opposite, one can’t help but wonder if the D in xD stands for Daisy; as in the driving of. With its relatively soft suspension and apparent lack of balance conspiring against any of the maneuvers its aggressive sheetmetal might inspire, its manners seem to be anything but youthful. Then again, it’s precisely that slower-is-safer mentality and the low $17,200 base price that will attract so many parents to the xD as their kid’s first car. And of course, with a strong aftermarket, a good stereo (the optional unit is a very aftermarket-looking Alpine head unit), and decent looks, most 16 year olds could do far worse than this. Then again, should the average parent start ticking option boxes ranging from the $450 security system to the $158.30 arm rest to the $1,741.60 18” wheels, one might find themselves scratching their head as to how they ended up with a funky looking cute-ute Scion thing that costs as much as an arguably better equipped, unmistakably better driving, turbocharged and all-wheel drive Nissan Juke. And here’s the answer: they’re from different decades. Although the Scion may look plenty futuristic enough and is new enough in Canada as to remain an uncommon commodity, it’s actually anything but new. Hailing all the way from 2008, the current xB is largely unchanged from that year which most will remember as that in which oil first hit $100 dollars per barrel, Beijing hosted the summer Olympics, and a man named Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. And in the years since, we’ve recovered from a recession (apparently), hosted our own Olympics, and seen the creation of commercially viable electric cars… not to mention advanced the balance of automotive technology quite a bit as well. And it’s precisely those advances that give the Juke such an edge over Scion’s bulldoggish product. Yes indeed, the xB’s most futuristic feature may its ability to transport you back in time, but sadly for Scion, it can’t change what I expect from the modern vehicle: more.