I’ve only owned one Toyota in my car-owning life, and true to Toyota’s reputation, it remains one of the most reliable and trouble-free cars I’ve ever owned. That Toyota was a Scion xB, a wonderfully boxy little workhorse that has since found a second life as a hilarious rally car. I always felt the incredibly simple two-box design was wonderfully useful and practical. Really, the only thing that could have made the xB any more useful was if it could somehow be a little pickup truck. Because then you could, you know, carry ostriches and cypress trees and tall things like that.
Happily, Toyota actually did have a pickup truck version of the Scion xB (which was known as the Toyota bB in Japan), and it was called the bB Open Deck. We never got it here in the states; in fact, I’m not sure it ever officially made it out of Japan at all.
The clever little bB Open Deck was like a normal bB from the front to the B-pillar. Or, at least where the B-pillar would be, because on one side of the car it was gone, replaced by a combination of nothing and a rear suicide door:
There was still a good-sized back seat area, but now behind it instead of a wagon-like (and tall) cargo area, there was a pretty short open truck bed, flanked by a pair of roll bars/roof rails that suggested the boxy shape of the normal bB.
The bed wasn’t long, but it was usable, and was even more useful than may be initially apparent because this was the only Toyota to ever feature an actual midgate. That’s right! That rear window would flip up like a hatch, and the bulkhead below that would flip down flat on the truck bed to allow for a much longer load area. Look!
See what’s going on there? Also, that tailgate folds flat to increase the bed length as well. With the midgate folded open and the tailgate down, you’ve suddenly got a bed that is approaching normal compact pickup truck bed lengths. What a Swiss Army knife of a car!
It looks like at least one company was turning these into really cool rides for wheelchair users, with special storage solutions for the wheelchair in the bed and a seat that pivots and deploys out of the car door up front.
Here’s a video walkthrough of one acquired by an importer, so you can see it in some detail:
It’s pretty damn cool. I like when a carmaker decides to make a car cooler not via the application of power and performance hardly anyone is really going to take advantage of, but by making something wildly flexible and useful via lots of little doors and flaps and moving panels and whatnot.
The advertising for the bB was pretty much by the book: you know, the usual, expected ways a corporation tries to convince you that you need a particular car, via gold-painted mermen in what looks kind of like Thai-inspired headgear and blowing what I think are bugles as they romp around on their fishy tales and even take naps in the back of the bB OpenDeck:
Yep, the old gold mermen blowing bugles gambit. Way to phone it in, Toyota.
my ’06 xb has 240,000 miles on the original clutch, it is a mild engine til you hit 4,000 rpm, then the vvvt kicks in! like a two stroke when it gets on the pipe!!! it is easy to get in, handy at my age. comfy inside. and i can fit some 2x4x8s in and close the rear hatch. granted they’re butt on the dash, but it can be done. the second gen xb is not as loved, it’s uglier abd the motor is suss.
saw a comment about slow. mine daily does 70-80 on I-5 with no complaint, the engine is buzzy though.
“The advertising for the bB was pretty much by the book: you know, the usual, expected ways a corporation tries to convince you that you need a particular car, via gold-painted mermen in what looks kind of like Thai-inspired headgear and blowing what I think are bugles as they romp around on their fishy tales and even take naps in the back of the bB OpenDeck”
Not that tired old trope yet again! 🙁
Looking at that topshot, I just realised that the OpenDeck shares its taillights with the contemporary Hilux.
I’ve always liked it and wondered why they didn’t attempt to sell it in the us . The xb was a smash hit even under the scion brand when people were so confused about them especially at first. The Baja came back in that era with the surf board advertisement. A us ad could have had surf board or long boards or maybe a grandfather clock or something to really tie in to the demo they should have been chasing. They could have even had some kind of cover on the back like a jeep or samurai.
Phone it in?! That’s anything BUT phoned in! Do you know how many aristocratic salary men had to go to a bar and get totally sloshed before they came up with that idea? That’s peak “Pepsi Man” bonkers advertisement.
I do love these types of delightfully ingenuities.
The ad is as great as the car. As since-new owner of a 2006 xB, all I can say is: WANT
If it were put together by anybody else besides Toyota, I would think the rattles would drive me nuts.
I just noticed in one of the ads show both front seats folded down. Did Toyota expect someone to drive the Bb like that?
I think the Element could do that too. The idea being the front and rear seats fold to the same height making an even sleeping platform for 2 people.
Yeah but I bet someone sat on top of their cargo and tried to drive it like that
I was pleasantly surprised to see you posted the commercial from my channel! I’m a long time JDM car nerd and back in the late 90’s-early 2000’s Toyota posted these low res copies of their ads on their website and I downloaded them to my laptop. When YouTube came along, I posted a few including this one since it’s so bizarre. I also suggest the Sparky ad with it’s crazy Snow White theme.
Ah, if you ever wan tot do a ute conversion, simply fire a mighty blast of magic water form your golden ocean bugle! Saving this crucial tip for future projects…
Toyota should’ve brought it over here. It would’ve been a great part of Scion’s lineup.
I love it! But I can see why it wasn’t brought here stateside. Anyone who wants a truck was already looking at the Tacoma or Tundra, and this would have been an afterthought.
But, in Toyota’s homeland where vehicles are taxed on engine size and exterior dimensions, I can see why this would have been a great vehicle for the time it was in production. It might have done well in some European countries too.
Would it have been subject to the Chicken Tax as well? There’d be zero profit importing it here if it were.
I’m not really sure, would depend upon how the government would have classified the vehicle. I’m sure that Toyota might have explored the idea on paper, which would have included discussions to determine if that were the case.
Also, I doubt that this would have been built stateside as I doubt that Toyota would have projected this to be a sales leader, and thus there would be no good business reason to upend what the American facilities were churning out.
technically it’s a truck, so the chicken tax would apply, sigh.
Chicken Tax doesn’t apply to vehicles with more than 2 seats, right? That’s why the Brat has the jump seats in the bed.
I thought it had been designed specifically for the US market, and always used its non-importation as another stick to beat Jim Farley’s cack-handed management of the Scion brand. I never thought of the Chicken Tax.
Bring it on home to me. bB King ranch edition
How many 4×8 sheets of sheetrock can it hold?
In Japan I assume they use cm instead of ft.
If I remember correctly, the use feet for plywood which makes for really odd converted sizes.
Did Toyota not sell this over here because they were afraid it would cannibalize Tundra sales?
I heard in Japan the bB could be optioned with AWD, which it couldn’t be in the states. I wonder if the Open Deck version had that option too?
It would have been unsafely slow. It was already too slow as we got it. Yes, I had an xB.
Golden Mermen, did you say?
TAKE MY MONEY!!!
I put about 140k on my ’06 xB starting in 2008, and only sold it to try something a bit sporty now that I was single again. That car did everything though, autocross (yes autocross), TotD trips with friends, vacations all while carrying whatever I wanted. It was like a Tardis inside.
I bought another ’04 with a manual a few years ago when I needed something to carry costume bins and/or my dog. It wasn’t as well cared for, so I only kept it a couple years. But with a manual it was even more fun.
Supposedly, in my region; they would not let xBs on the auto cross course, because they didn’t meet the height to width ratio for rollover predictability. That or my xB friends didn’t want to embarrass themselves so they made that up.
I had to get permission. But with the Tannabe lowering springs, front strut bar and less than stellar acceleration they let me in. I only did a couple events until I tried a rental Ford Probe they had at a rallycross. That gave me a good reason to go buy a cheap MR2 and get dirty.
Is Tardis called Doraemon in Japanese?
The latter came out a hair after Doctor Who. I wonder if there’s been some inspiration.
The mermen were clearly the product development team, because those bugles had powers. A few well-aimed blasts, and your bB was transformed.
But seriously, what a cool little beast, like a concept that escaped the show circuit and slipped into production. Sadly, I don’t think the American market would have understood it, which is our loss.
Never before has something with so many hinges seemed quite so unhinged.
My nomination for COTD.
Vehicle ad campaigns through the 90s and 2000s were absolutely bonkers.
I’m convinced the Advertising Departments were collectively holding up the international drug trade with their patronage.