CAR GAZING
Scion xD is trendy, relatively speaking
Quick replacement for xA comes just in time for young buyers
By Derek Price
Before we get to today's lesson on cars, class, let's get a quick refresher on physics.
Einstein proved how space and time are relative – the faster an object moves, the slower time progresses. According to his theory, time moves slower and slower the closer an object gets to the speed of light.
And this can only mean one thing: teenagers are moving nearly as fast as light.
Think about it. When you were a teenager, it took an eternity to get from the ninth grade to the 10th because you were measuring things in young-people time. Five minutes in math class felt like years, and it took eons to reach summer break at the end of every school year.
Once you transition to old-people time, though, things are different. You look at continents and see them drifting together. You think the pyramids weren't built all that long ago. Worst of all, you think your favorite rock bands are still cool and are mistakenly being played on easy-listening stations.
Scion, Toyota's brand for young people, has realized this fact and decided to redesign its cars on a young-people time scale. While we folks who use old-people time still think the Scion xA is fresh, youthful and trendy, kids on young-people time think it's a Bronze Age handcart.
And that's why this car, the Scion xD, exists.
A replacement for the oh-so-out-of-date xA, the all-new xD offers what Toyota thinks young buyers want: a funky-looking car that's fun to drive and has a great stereo.
The xD is definitely weird looking, especially on the front end. It's like a rhinoceros that got punched in the face by an elephant. That's good news, because if I liked the way it looked, young people wouldn't.
It's also fairly fun to drive, especially for something from the Toyota family. It's lightweight and tossable with a zippy little engine that makes 128 horsepower.
Finally, it has a great stereo with lots of knobs and buttons and acronyms and wiz-bang graphics that thump to the beat. I couldn't figure out everything it did, but I'm sure a younger person could.
This is an affordable car, as you'd expect. It starts at just $14,550.
But it has some downsides, the biggest of which is its utter weirdness and how that might impact its resale value. Sure, it's trendy now, but the strange gauges and unusual styling that are cool in 2008 will be dorky and dated when it comes time to sell the thing.
It's also a tin can. It's noisy and fairly cramped, but – realistically – that's not unusual for cars in this price range.
Overall, it's a stylish car at a good price, one that brilliantly, beautifully and harmoniously links Einstein's theory of relativity to saggy britches and crooked baseball caps.
I know, I know. Send my name to the Nobel committee.
Next week's lesson: Most things expand when they get hot and shrink when they get cold, which explains why days are longer in summer and shorter in winter.
(Derek Price is a newspaper editor and freelance writer living in Texas.)
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