Test drove a Scion today, as part of their promotion on Elmwood.

I'm always happy to drive a different car, and the fact that I got a free coffee card made the deal even sweeter.

When Scion was announced a few years ago, I was thrilled. Why? Because I knew that Toyota made the best cars, but I also knew that they had become expensive and were made more and more for an "older" demographic. Scions were supposed to be cheaper and cooler.

And they started out that way, with small, affordable, efficient cars.

And then they got bigger.

And more expensive.

And less efficient.

And then they decided that the most important thing was being cool.

So there were all kinds of custom paint jobs, and fancy options, and lots of fluff added to what started out as a cool affordable car, from a company that really didn't need the gimmicks at all.

Here's a tip, Toyota. If you want to sell a lot of cars, the options aren't that important. The "accessories" (hats, t-shirts, key-chains, etc.) are even less important.

In fact, you don't even have to work that hard on design. Japanese cars of old are just what we need today. Here's a car you made in the 80s that I would buy in a second if it was still made today. It got great gas milage, was cheap, lasted at least 100k miles, and was still fun to drive. Please see the Toyota Tercel:



Some other cars that would completely sell if anybody bothered to make them anymore:

The car that I knew as metro: (over 40 mpg on old technology)

Even cooler was the CR-X:

Put a new clean diesel in one of these things, and they would sell even faster!

Stop making cars bigger and more powerful. Stop making them more expensive. Stop trying to be cool. Just make a good, small, car. PLEASE.


Don't believe me? Check out this story:

Ok. I really don't know. But I DO know that the Smart cars that are being test-driven on Elmwood are AWESOME, and even if you don't like small cars as much as I do, you will surely like the free starbucks gift card ($10) that you get for filling out the short survey after driving the car. Check out the cars next to the Starbucks by ETS.