Having witnessed the sun drop past the horizon a few long hours ago, I swing the nose end of my ride under a slowly rising garage door. Slamming shut the car door and stepping through the entrance of my sad cardboard living arrangement, the only thoughts going through my head are mostly thanks that this is the end of another long day. As we grow closer and closer to deadlines, and even pass them, without having our work turned in or ready, my stress level builds proportional to my last minute workload. I switch on my TV and fiddle with the rabbit ears in order to grab one fleeting glimpse of my boob tube before having to settle back into writing mode.
Soon, a slick computer enhanced advertisement blasts across my screen. Leaning forward to catch every glimpse of this ad, I can't help but notice the amount of urban, youthful, hip-ness oozing out of every frame. On screen a boxy, stock Scion xB sits on top of a piece of wet-down, darkened pavement that could pass for any street on the eastside of Los Angeles. The xB proceeds to morph in every single way, from the shift knob changing through various models, to the paint color and wheels blending through umpteen different designs. As the ad draws to a close, the xB transforms into a very familiar orange beast before returning to its original state. Complete with a custom wide body and a DJ table that is motorized to extend out of the rear, that orange xB is known to many of our readers as one of Scion's crown jewels. Since the xB is one of the most extensively modified Scions ever, it takes a whole lot to match it, and there was only one other Scion capable of inspiring so much drooling, the tC. The infamous lime green wide-bodied turbocharged tC with a 43-inch motorized rear Pioneer plasma TV was built by the same madmen behind the DJ spinnin' xB. Those craftsmen go by the name of Five Axis.
The Huntington Beach, Calif. based company, which is a little more than a decade old, specializes in producing concept cars and other extremely one-off pieces. To our industry, they are the premier showstoppers, having built wildly imaginative versions of every car in Scion's lineup. After tackling the xB and tC, the only car left for Five Axis to touch was the diminutive xA. Having access to numerous resources such as: 3D computer and clay modeling, artist renderings, glassmaking, rapid prototyping, metal and composite fabrication, as well as 3-axis and their namesake five-axis milling, Five Axis could make anything their imaginations desired.