Scion's 6-CD stereo with XFM capabilities has three settings. The first level allows you to hold a conversation over the music and the next level makes you feel like you're in the audience of a concert. The final level is intended to make you feel like you're onstage at a concert. Scion clearly intends to shake the Valley of the Jeep Beats. The LCD's faceplate glow can also be chosen from 10 different colors. The custom color of the stereo face reflects the 40 customizations one can add to the basic model--things like fat exhaust pipes, metallic pedals, and deluxe rims. (215/45-R17 tires on 17" aluminum alloy wheels is stock.) The Japanese contingent shows us footage of Black Box clubs in Japan that transform the basic 1.5-liter four-cylinder cars into lowriders and lovemobiles. They are ridiculously ornate, and some border on being cool.

The presentation is deluxe--and if you add up the hourly wages of the dog and pony show contestants, our sneak preview probably cost four digits--but we really just wanted to drive the new car "to our hearts' content" at the "test drive facility" as promised in the invitation. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to drive the bbX and the track that we had envisioned wound up being the neighborhood. To be fair, the 1,350-watt "Scion Sound Processing" sounded great (and I don't even like dance music) and the headroom and elbow room was shocking for such a tiny car (yet there was barely enough space for two duffle bags in the trunk), but you really have to drive a car to get a true feel for how it handles. We did not. It's obvious that the Toyota designers and engineers tried to make the entry-level car as nice as possible with good sound, decent seats, fancy trim, a unique dashboad, and so on, but who really cares about how the door sounds when you shut it? And what about the horsepower, suspension, and safety reports? That information won't be released until the auto's unveiling at the Los Angeles Auto Show in January. In the end, Toyota may get an inside track on "keeping it real" by gleaning marketing information from URB magazine. And the well-respected auto manufacturer is certainly helping the young generation's quest for the ultimate car stereo by working with Pioneer. But the respect part has to include treating auto buyers as if they are buying a vehicle, and not looking for a new boom-box. Brian Bolain, Scion's national manager, says that the bbX has been designed to elicit a polarized response: You either love it or hate it. Hate's a strong word, but I'm on the latter side. You can decide for yourself when it hits California in June 2003, and gets distribution throughout the United States over the next year.

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