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FR-S with Targa-style top leads Scion's SEMA brigade

The Scion brand seems to be a bit rudderless in the auto industry at the moment. The company just doesn't seem to know what audience it wants to appeal to. For this year's SEMA Show in Las Vegas, the automakers is kind of just going wild with bizarre customs like a turbocharged FR-S with a targa top (pictured above).
Taking the roof off of a FR-S isn't an entirely new idea, but this targa-top version at SEMA is certainly a new take. In addition to just chopping a panel out of the roof, the custom also adds a louvered rear window in an especially cool touch that lends an '80s coupe vibe. To take the wild look even further, the car wears a bespoke wide body kit with an integrated rear spoiler and center-mount exhaust, and all of the bodywork is done in metal. Being for the premiere aftermarket show, performance also has to play a role, and the upgrades include a Greddy turbo kit, coil-over suspension from KW and big brakes from Wilwood.
If the FR-S seemed just slightly inspired by the '80s, the xB for the show goes for a look that's a decade older with inspiration from '70s conversion vans and skateboarding. With design help from skateboarder Riley Hawk, the custom is painted in shades of groovy earth tones with bubble windows in the rear, and the cargo box on the roof stores skateboards. The interior features touchstones of the time with a mix of wood-grain trim, shag carpet and comfy brown leather.

Which sinister Scion FR-S would you buy?

Look beyond the utility. Look beyond the amenities, the infotainment, the hidden storage cubbies, and the 72-way adjustable seats. Yes, even the seats. Outside all the fluff of today's cars, there's a blank canvas waiting for an artist; cars can really come alive with a few tastefully placed modifications. These two Scion FR-S sports cars surely fall into that category, and when they both turned up on eBay, we figured we'd ask the question — which would you rather buy? The track-centric red car or the brutally simple black car ? Internet, you be the judge. The "widebody" look — with its outrageous fender flares and visible rivets—isn't for everyone, but this 2013 Scion FR-S happens to pull it off quite well. According to the listing, the pumped-up fenders, splitter, and additional aero bits are courtesy of legendary widebody purveyor Rocket Bunny. Overall, the racy body mods add a significant twinge of aggression to the once docile FR-S... a notion that's echoed underneath the hood. The heady Scion FR-S leverages an HKS supercharger system and exhaust, paired with a set of Buddy Club racing coilover shocks, Bee-R wheels wrapped in Yokohama ADVAN rubber, and a new engine management system. All in all, this looks to be one fierce track and street monster. RELATED: Check Out This Wild Toyota GT86 Wagon Concept But whereas the red car is a shout, the black car is a growl. Confident, powerful, yet restrained. The black 2013 Scion FR-S sports a sultry Varis Arising 2 body kit with carbon fiber accents lining its front lip and boot lid, as well as a brilliant set of projector headlights and Tom's taillights. The icing on the cake is the set of Work M1R gunmetal grey wheels, which come fitted with Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires. There's no supercharger in play here, but the Scion's 2.0-liter boxer engine does breathe a bit easer thanks new ceramic coated exhaust headers and a high-flow catalytic converter. It can also handle a bit better too, courtesy of sporty Cusco Street Zero 3 coilover shocks. If we're honest, both are quite jaw-dropping in their own unique styles. But which do you prefer? Related Video: This article by Zach Doell originally appeared on Boldride.com.

Scion was slain by Toyota, not the Great Recession

Scion didn't have to go down like this. Through the magic of hindsight and hubris, it's easier to see what went wrong. And what might have been. What the industry should understand is this: Scion wasn't a losing proposition from the get-go. Its death is due to negligence and apathy. This is more than just the failure of a sub-brand. It's the failure of a company to deliver new and compelling products over an extended period of time. Toyota will point to the Great Recession as the reason it hedged its bets and withdrew funding for new vehicles, instead of using that as an opportunity to redouble efforts. This was as good as a death warrant, although myopically no one realized it at the time. Sadly, GM's Saturn experiment was a road map for this exact form of failure. No one at Toyota seemed to think the Saturn experience was worth protecting their experimental brand from. Or they weren't heard. Brands live and die on product. Somehow, Scion convinced itself that its real success metric was a youthful demographic of buyers. It seems like this was used to gauge the overall health of the brand. Look at the aging and uncompetitive tC, which Scion proudly noted had a 29-year-old average buyer. That fails to take into account its lack of curb appeal and flagging sales. Who cares if the declining number of people buying your cars are younger? Toyota is going to kill the tC thirteen years [And two indifferent generations ... - Ed.] after it was introduced. In that time, Honda has come out with three entirely new generations of the Civic. Scion wasn't a losing proposition from the get-go. Its death is due to negligence and apathy. At launch, the brand could have gone a few different ways. The xB was plucky, interesting, and useful – a tough mix of ephemeral characteristics – but the xA didn't offer much except a thin veneer of self-consciously applied attitude. That's ok; it was cute. Enter the tC, which managed to combine sporty pretensions with decent cost. It took on the Civic Coupe in the contest for coolness, and usually managed to win. More importantly, an explicit brand value early on was a desire to avoid second generations of any of its models, promising a continually evolving and fresh lineup. At this point, the road splits. Down one lane lies the Scion that could have been. After a short but reasonable product lifecycle, it would have renewed the entire lineup.