The Scion FR-S is awesome, and I'm a hypocrite.

Last month, I created a rant to express frustrated I am with Toyota's slow roll-out marketing strategy for the GT-86. Toyota first unveiled the FT-86 in 2009 and after all the hype, all the teasers, and media kits, I was simply tired of all the bullshit and I lost interest in the car.

Dozens of 86/FR-S/BRZ forums have sprouted over the years and very soon I could no longer stand the redundant discussions covering the same handful of subjects.

And yet, after I published, something strange happened. It's as if Toyota had decided to cast a curse on me and before I knew it, I was sucked back into it all. Suddenly, AutoGuide.com assigned me with more and more GT-86 related articles to work on and soon I found myself clicking through all the FR-S related literature I came across. I've clicked on every new gallery. Hell, I now start every morning by typing in "Scion FR-S" into the search box just to see whether Google news had found anything new for me to feed on. I've become an addict.

Confused, I decided to seek counseling from a friend of mine and we discussed the matter in depth. We're well aware of its performance and we like what we're seeing at the Tokyo Auto Salon so it wasn't like there was anything that hadn't already cross my mind. Nonetheless, perhaps addressing my thoughts aloud will allow them to take shape.



My friend Blake thoughtfully raised a rather important issue. Quite bluntly, he mentioned that it would only be a matter of time before an FR-S gets plastered with Fatlace, Monster, and Red Bull stickers. It will only be a matter of time before an FR-S gets bagged and slammed. It'll only be a matter of time before we spot a stormtroopered-out FR-S with pink BBS rims. It will be driven by d-bags that don flat-brimmed baseball caps, neon wayfarers, and ironic jeans.

Just look at the threads on www.fr-sforum.com. Seriously, there's a whole thread dedicated to discussing what kind of craziness Veilside (of Tokyo Drift Fortune RX7 and Fortune NSX fame) might offer. I haven't heard that name in ages!

Hell, there's even a RWB rendering. On Nakai-San's defense, Rauh-Welt Begriff WAS cool. Unfortunately, some things can only be cool so many times before it starts becoming uncool, if you know what I mean. With the addition of every new project, RWB loses its mystique. In my opinion, the radical fabrication garage has already fallen from grace 5 Porsches ago. Now, the GT86 isn't even released yet and these hypebeasts are already finding ways to ruin it.

With respect, I took my friend's thoughts into account. I reached into the deepest corners of my soul and sincerely asked myself whether an FR-S is what I really want.

Alarmingly, not only is my answer a resounding yes, but I could also see in all likelihood that I'll be caught doing exactly the same things that I claimed only a douchebag would moments ago. I think I'm going to strip the Scion badges off of my future FR-S and replace them with Toyota badges.

JDM, yo.

Toyota 86: I am Iron Man

Iron Man was a great movie. It starred the second-best (behind Xavier) damn Marvel superhero of all time; it was performed by the talented cast of Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges, Terrance Howard, and Gwyneth Paltrow; and most of all, Iron Man was great simply because it was directed by fellow Queens native and Bronx Science alumni, Jon Favreau.

I knew I had to catch it but, unfortunately, I couldn't find the time until its very last week in theaters. By then, everybody and their grandmother had already seen it and raved on and on about the movie. Best movie ever! Blew my mind! Shit was bananas!

By the time I went to see it, I've been fed a month's worth of buzz and entered the theater with unjustified expectations. It was a disaster. What could have been a life changing cinematic experience turned out, at moments, to be slightly boring. Somehow, the movie was just too predictable and it almost seemed like I've seen it before. Because of the great number of people that couldn't stop talking about it, Iron Man was ruined. I barely enjoyed it.

I'll go straight to the point. The Toyota 86 is my automotive Iron Man. Ever since the FT-86 was first unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2009, we've seen so many concept variants and it's been reported, speculated, and promoted so relentlessly in so many different mediums (auto shows, magazines, blogs, twitter, forums, spy photos at Nurburgring, Gran Turismo 5), I've honestly grown tired of it.