- Ah, yes, I remember way back in the day, Scion was one of the
first websites that was trying to cater to the automotive
enthusiast in all of us, yeah, building custom Scion boxes that you could modify on their website. You remember it, I remember it. Maybe you didn't, but I do. What was it, they had the
chipmunks, chicken, no. Was it like, the hairy bean
ones with the cute eyes? Gerbils? ♪ You could do with that ♪ ♪ If you could do with this ♪ - Gerbils, either way,
Scion has been a brand that has always tried to be
like the hip, fun, cool brand, under the granddaddy of Toyota and for the most part, it's
kinda sorta worked, maybe. But when Scion released this
model, it did surprisingly well and for the most part,
gave it's best chance as catering to younger
automotive enthusiasts that not many have done before. I'm Alex, @ALEXFI on Instagram and today, we're gonna be talking about the unsuspecting, the modest, oh yeah, I forgot about that car, the car of the mid 2000s, the Scion tC. (pounding music) (engine roars) (imitates beat box) All right, and if you're just jumping into the channel, welcome. Click, type, or lightly press
the red button to subscribe so we can keep making
banging videos like this. We don't need you to smash it,
we don't need you to slam it, I'm not gonna scream at you about it, but if you just wanna
press, that'd be pretty neat and if you're looking for
aftermarket wheels, tires, or suspension, be sure to
check out fitmentindustries.com for your newly acquired Scion tC and you're just watching the video, or you're thinking about
picking on up or otherwise. We have it all, ladies and gentlemen. That's not a threat, that's promise. To chat about the Scion tC is to chat about Scion as a whole, which was the hip, young testbed of Toyota that was launched way back in 2002, the days of Samurai Jack and Cookie Crisp and all of those lovely cartoon show days. Miss those ones quite a bit. All right, Scion was meant to be a counter-culture image from Toyota, to appeal to the younger audience that wanted Toyota's reliability without Toyota's old person persona, which was a thing back
then, if you don't remember. A lot of people were trying to get into the millennials and be-- That was weird when you say it like that, like they wanted to-- That was weird, too. Anyway, the brand would launch
in nightclubs and arcades and youth-centric locations
to grow the brand. - Art lovers, you an see the art studio. (electronic music) Customize your own shirt. (electronic music) 12th Planet of Scion
Radio 17 mixing it up. (house music) Get a photo. Get a haircut. - Versus conventional television promotion because they wanted to be hip and cool. When it launched, it launched
with the xA and the xB and things were pretty dandy, the toaster and then the other one. 2004 entered and finally
they entered the Scion tC. Now, it entered the game at
an incredible price range, which was exactly what
Toyota wanted to do, below $20,000 which is exactly where teenagers needed it to be,
essentially cheap as (beep). It was meant to replace the Toyota Celica in order to appeal to
the millennial market. Okay, boomer. And Toyota set it up to practically be an a la carte style car, so instead of having to
get your aftermarket parts from some random third
party eBay reseller, Scion just hosted a plethora
of upgrades for your car right on the site or from your dealership, which is why, a lot of times, if you've seen multiple Scion
tCs in the same place before, they almost all look different and have different
stuff going on with them because that's just
what they wanted to do. This allowed the car to be
sold with practically nothing, which exploded its sales initially and got the good old
automotive enthusiasts stoked about the car. It doesn't come with anything. You put stuff on, it's pretty fun. It had a 2.4 liter, dual
overhead cam, 161 horsepower and 162 foot pounds of torque, different transmission options,
7.5 second quarter mile, and it wasn't quick, okay, but the fact that you could modify it is what made it sell so well. And the first generation
even had a supercharger, if you wanted that.
(engine whines) It did well and in 2011, Scion tC entered the second generation, essentially trying to curb the recession. The new generation had
quite a few updates. It got angry, added
more parallelogram lines to its body style. The rear window featured a
classic ZX style rear window and a Lexus-esque front nose and an upgraded engine with
a bit more power to boot. It essentially tried to feature everything that made other cars pretty fancy and put it in to the Scion. Even without the supercharger, the improvements made the second
generation tC a viable car that more people could hop into and not have to buy an
upsold steering wheel to actually get it down the road. Unfortunately, its life
wasn't lived very long because the sales of the
good ole tC dwindled, due to the lack of resources
that Toyota gave it. They were just choking it
at the throat, the Scion. Just didn't want to go on anymore. Toyota didn't want it to
go on anymore, either. It was just rough. The recession, if you remember that, if we were alive back then, recession wasn't doing
very well for Toyota either and it was the last attempt
to garner additional interest. Scion would revamp the design of the tC one more time in 2014 to match
the launch of the Scion FR-S. It would receive new
headlights, grille, taillights, body kit, sport tuned
suspension, and some more goodies and as the years progressed, the good ole cliff got closer to Scion until they inevitably
decided to hop on off and ended production on the car and the entire Scion
brand in August of 2016. Now, Toyota says it
has to do with the fact that the sellers that they were
targeting back in the 2000s, no longer exists today,
which could be true. A lot of times, people like us just wanna buy a Toyota
instead of a Scion, but fun fact, the Scion did accomplish what it was looking to do, as it had the lowest average-aged buyer in the industry, of 29 years old. But you wanna know what? We're done talking about
the history of Scion tCs. History, all right, it ended, like Leonidas at the end of 300 and we'll always remember it as a true defender of the sport-- Nope, like, I'm not, I can't do that. Okay, but either way, you're not here to
learn about the history, you're here to learn about what to expect when you go to own one
of these bad boys, okay. Well, set down the protein shake and grab your favorite dubstep CD mix and let's jump into this
early 2000s bad boy, okay. The Scion tC was always
marketed in a weird way. - Art lovers, get a photo, get a haircut. - Similar to an older
dad convincing his kids that he, too, was hip and cool. - The puzzle game. - Because he can do the floss. Doesn't matter if you
can do the floss, Greg, you're still old as (beep)
and it's really weird, okay. You don't do it at a family dinner. It's just not something that happens. Toyota's marketing was
pretty similar to that and although it did well initially, it did well from a standpoint
of a cost perspective and not necessarily from
a younger generation marketing just loving it perspective. The car, the aftermarket car community, was quick to jump onto the how many times do we
need to tell you old man, get the hell outta Dodge, and that's pretty much what
happened for quite a long time. And it didn't really
ever get fully accepted into the modifying world,
however, it is still a Toyota. It's a tC, it's reliable. It's got everything you
need to be a proper daily and although it's nothing crazy, it can get the job done
without much fuss or issue, which is why you always
see so many of them just kinda floating around town. Most of its parts are borrowed from other cars within the family, which keeps costs down and
maintenance relatively easy. They can look good and they do look good, if you're looking for
a simple daily driver and you wanna throw just a
little bit of money at it. You can't get much better than this car in the bang for bucks category, which is exactly what it was trying to do. You'll see most of the
Scion tCs these days, running up on JNCs or XXR 527s because they do have some
weird wheel fitment option. 8.25 inch fit better than 8.5. Federal 595 tires are all you run on these and if you want coilovers, most of them end up running
BC racing coilovers. The Scion tC has a little
bit of an interesting and relatively short history, which is why this video is
actually shorter than usual because they don't have a lot of history in the automotive culture. They were raced but there's
nothing substantial. They were modified but didn't feature a massive
footprint in the seat. They never really have. They're reliable but not a car that people actively
recommended in the forums. They look properly good
with modifications, but not many choose to
modify them anymore. The car may be one of the past and it's just not something that a lot of people are
talking about these days, especially in current day, but I'd be pretty hard-pressed
to pass up on one. If you're looking to jump into a car that's efficient, low cost
and can get you out of debt because you're not gonna
have to take out a loan on it and you can go to college and back and still have a dandy
of a car that looks good and feels good and just is good, you know. It's kinda like a Neon, but not the SRT, you know what I'm saying. It's kinda just like it's
there, you can do stuff to it, but not too much. So, if you got aftermarket Scion tC or have thoughts on this one, let us know in the comment section and let us know what you think about it. Of course, if you're looking for aftermarket wheels, tires or suspension, be sure to check us out over
at fitmentindustries.com where we have everything
from JNCs to Rotiform to even Volks if you want to
flex on some kids, all right. B series and coilovers
and every tire imaginable. Also, let us know what you
want to see us talk about next. What car platform? Scion tC, you guys asked
for it, there it is. And if you're that one
guy that keeps saying E46, keep it up, champ, all right. I'm with you, I'm just
waiting for the green light. I'm Alex, Alex from Fitment Industries and we will see you later. Peace.
