How I Turned An Abandoned Beater Into A Championship-Winning Race Car

“Hey man, what is that thing?”

It’s a question I hear fairly often, and to the curious onlooker’s credit, I totally understand the confusion. They might be unsure because the previous owner slapped the badging from a Great Wall Coolbear on the rear. It is possible they are unfamiliar with the Scion brand, a youth-oriented offshoot from the Toyota company that only existed for 12 short years. Most likely though, it is because this little toaster on wheels doesn’t look like anything else on the road. (Actually if you squint I think it kind of looks like the new Bronco Sasquatch – I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide if the Ford should be flattered by the comparison)

When I first acquired this 2006 Scion xB back in July of 2023, it was in dire straits. It had no title, it had been used as a testing platform for the worst foods to eat while driving, and it had claimed the life of at least one deer.

[Editor’s Note: This was my old car. And I loved it! The Scion was the car I bought when I needed something relatively modern to haul around my kid, and became my wife’s primary car for years. We used the crap out of it and grew to respect it a lot. I hauled entire washing machines in it, and the legendary Tiff Needell once tracked it at Willow Springs. 

Eventually, my wife wanted something a little more refined, so the Scion got sidelined, sat long enough to get moldy, and then David and I did this to it:

Then, yeah, it kind of got abandoned in a major automaker’s parking lot. I’m delighted Tom has taken this car and given it a fantastic second life, but I just wanted to clarify some of its history. – JT]

But apart from the hastily spraypainted Autopian logos on the sides, it looked like most other slightly clapped-out Scion xBs still on the road. I knew I wanted to customize it, but much like the mold spores floating inside the cabin, my vision for what this car would eventually become was initially quite hazy.

The gradual evolution of this car has been fairly well documented on this site. Two weeks after picking it up in Detroit, I campaigned it, completely stock, at the HooptieX race at Rouch World Off-Road park. Rouch is a long, twisting course that has you driving through trees, over steep hills, and inside a shipping container at one point. I got stuck in the mud on my first lap. Somehow though, from that single race I still managed to get 11th in my class for the season. I also managed to get hooked on driving this silly little nugget over terrain it was never meant to encounter.

I knew if I wanted to be truly competitive in the future, I would need more aggressive tires. I kept an eye on the various online marketplaces, searching for some meaty off-road rubber already mounted to wheels with my bolt pattern. While I waited for the Rally Gods to bless me with an appropriate set of kicks, I workshopped some concepts with the Autopian Discord for the xB’s makeover. It was decided that the xB should be painted with sunset stripes, which were applied with the help of my brother and my dad at sunset (naturally).

After the paint was applied and the Harbor Freight work rally lights were installed, the xB sat for a while. I took it to a handful of car shows and used it to pick up a Christmas tree, but it wasn’t until 2024 that the rubber really started to meet the road. I had finally found my tires!

Located a short 3-hour drive away, a kindred spirit of the impractical vehicle variety was offloading a set of wheels and tires meant for a lifted Miata. The seller told me they vibrated terribly and drove like crap, but I couldn’t be dissuaded–dirt isn’t known for its smoothness anyway, so I scooped them up. It turned out that these Bassett wheels just need to be balanced differently than most tire shops are capable of and I was able to get the vibration taken care of. Unfortunately, a rough ride wasn’t the most important problem for me to solve; I’d have to find a way to make them fit.

You see, this youth-targeted, old person-adored xB was never designed to fit 27” tires or slide sideways through the dirt. It seems like Mr. Watanabe would have preferred that you buy a Tacoma or a 4-Runner for these kinds of shenanigans. Too bad for him though, because the xB is actually great at it once you give it a little extra elevation.

If you’re looking to get a lift for your xB, you want to get in touch with Randall “Randode” West. He runs the Lifted xBs group on Facebook and from what I can tell, he has been customizing Scions for the better part of a decade and a half. I ordered a 2” lift kit front and rear and a 1″ subframe drop to keep the steering geometry close-ish to stock. I also picked up some springs from a 2nd gen xB, which help give a little more height since the 2nd gen is a little porkier. Because I am running gen 2 springs, I also picked up a pair of rear shock extensions.

The install was pretty straightforward, but I still had to do some fender trimming to accommodate the 27×8.5R14 wheels and tires. In addition to these hardware mods, I beat the hell out of the wheel wells with a sledgehammer in an attempt to get full steering rotation back. It still could use some extra clearance in the rear when fully loaded with passengers, and the fronts rub terribly if I’m reversing and turning at the same time.

I picked up this car 2 weeks before my first HooptieX race. It was stressful and I wasn’t sure if it would be ready in time. I had learned my lesson from that experience though. This time the car was finished 3 weeks before my next race, the inaugural OppoX illegal backyard rallycross. As Proposition Joe might say, the xB looked the part, now it was ready to be the part (motherfucka).

OppoX was a blast. I met some great people and found an awesome community of car-obsessed weirdos. It also proved that the Scion was competition ready for 2024, which was great because this season I intended to win.

My first race of the season was in Byron, IL. I actually went there twice, because the competition was rained out the first time. Conditions were perfect for round two, and again the Scion held up like a champ. The competition was fierce and I took third in my class, after a pair of rowdy Civics. As the racing for the day concluded, I was even asked to be interviewed for a driver profile video by the organizers.

The next race was back in my home turf of Sturgis, MI. Track conditions were much better in 2024, but the course was just as rough and tumble as I remembered. I saw a Hummer H3 catch fire and a Jeep with a suspension setup that cost more than my entire car was sidelined, but the xB chewed through the dirt and trees and mud and I managed to put down a respectable 2nd place finish. By the end of the day I was first in my class for points and I was feeling pretty confident in my chances of maintaining the momentum and clinching the podium for the final Illinois race of the season.

…Aaaand then the race was canceled. I won’t get into the details or even pretend I know them, but NIMBYs are everywhere and insurance is expensive and while it was a bit of an anticlimactic way to end the season, I understand. Still, a dub is a dub and baby, I dubbed.

While the HooptieX racing season was complete, I wasn’t finished yet. I knew from the jumps in Illinois that I needed something to protect my soft, delicate undercarriage that would also look totally badass the next time I caught air. Obviously a retired stop sign was the only solution. Fortunately for me, I happen to have a metal recycler nearby that has a surplus of them.

With my extremely robust underbody protection installed, I was ready to conquer any terrain. I was ready to… fix my transmission.

If you’ve made it this far, first off: thanks! Secondly: I’m sorry. I told you some stuff was wrong with this xB at the beginning, but I kind of ignored the most important problem. To be fair, I also ignored it for the entire time I was driving and racing it too. Still, I knew it had to be addressed eventually. I had to take the transmission apart.

There was a constant low grinding sound coming from the gearbox. It was loud enough that it actually drowned out the droning of the all-terrain tires, which aren’t known for their serenity at highway speeds. So in February of 2025, 5 weeks before OppoX2 , I decided to do a transmission out job.

It actually wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Thankfully this car lived a salt-free lifestyle, so it is incredibly clean underneath. Everything came apart and went back together with relatively little fuss, and while the magnet was pretty hairy looking the bearings that I was afraid were completely roached actually looked totally fine. I had ordered new input and output bearings, but RockAuto must not be familiar with Scion xBs either because the ones I got didn’t look anything like the ones I had. Three weeks before the big day, the Scion was back on the ground with a new clutch, flywheel, battery, air filters, accessory belts, 4 new spark plugs and ignition coils, a valve cover gasket, and 2 new CV axles. I even had enough time to put a couple hundred miles on the car to make sure everything was working properly.

Mercedes already did a great job recapping the excitement of the day and the joy of hooning a shitbox through the dirt, and I will say she is absolutely right. I had always been a little precious about the xB, worried that something might break. This time I was feeling confident. I put down lap after lap and drove harder than I ever have before. Some might say that I drove the wheels off the thing. They might be right. A lot of wheels were driven off that day. Fortunately for me, a quick dismount and cleaning of the bead was all it took to get back in action.

Unfortunately, in my enthusiasm, I flew too close to the sun and near the end of the day I started to hear a concerning noise from the drivetrain. I thought if I drove home gingerly I could avoid catastrophe, but six short miles from the track what was a loud whirring sound became an even louder grinding, crunching, clunking sound, and the smell of gear oil was apparent both inside the car and out. Something had failed catastrophically and a tow home was the only option. And that is where the xB sits now–in my barn waiting to be patched up. I haven’t had a chance to diagnose exactly what is broken yet, but it doesn’t seem good. Is it terminal? I’m not sure.

Do I regret it? Absolutely not. I managed to get that action shot I had dreamed of when I installed the skid plate–all four wheels in the air and a bright red STOP sign begging for sanity. I hope it gets a chance to fly again.