At next week’s Chicago Auto Show, Scion will unveil the limited edition tC Release Series 4.0 (tC RS 4.0) featuring a Galactic Gray Mica exterior, a DAMD body kit and upper grill and colour-keyed rear spoiler. Inside, the tC RS 4.0 will have gray and black Alcantara seats, “tC RS 4.0” embroidered on the front and rear seats, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and a black leather and dark wood RAZO shift knob

Available at dealer showrooms beginning in March, the tC RS 4.0 will be built in only 2,300 units carrying an MSRP of $2,770 over the base price of the tC. The manual transmission tC has a base MSRP of $17,000, while the MSRP for the automatic transmission model is $17,800.

back to the drawing board. If there’s one car at this year’s New York Auto Show that won all of our negative votes for its appearance, that’s definitely the Scion Hako Concept. Part hot-rod, part box, the Hako shares more similarities with an orange brick on wheels than it does to a coupe. Having that in mind, we decided to photo-hack Scion’s concept by dressing its body with what else, but bricks! Let’s all pray that Scion’s design team doesn’t get any weird ideas from us

In collaboration with the New York based StrawberryFrog advertising and marketing agency, Scion has launched a new website called “Scion Speak” that lets users design custom coat of arms that can be then downloaded and turned into a window decal or even have them professionally painted onto their cars. Users can choose among hundreds of professionally designed symbols ranging from a yin-yang circle to a not-so politically correct, middle finger

Who’d ever believe that the Euro version of the Scion xB could bring on such passion! Well, apparently no one except for the Daihatsu Lynx dealer of Yeovil Somerset in the UK. “We all sat down and brainstormed how to promote this quirky car and I came up with the idea of a psychedelic theme,” said Aftersales Manager, Nick Morgan.

The good news is that Scion has developed a rear-wheel drive version of its compact coupe, the tC. The bad news for all us RWD-lovers is that the RS*R tC was created to compete in Formula Drift events and not to go on sale for the public to enjoy. The conversion, that was performed by aftermarket specialist, RS*R, was able to be done thanks to the fact that the tC shares its platform with Toyota’s Japanese market Avensis four-wheel drive and Caldina all-wheel drive.

Toyota’s American sibling Scion, announced prices for the 2009 model year xB and tC sports coupe. The boxy xB that will arrive at dealerships later this month will carry a base price of $15,750 when equipped with a 5-speed manual transmission and $16,700 for the 4-speed automatic with sequential shifting. Prices for both configurations represent an increase of $100 or 0.6 percent for those of you who like numbers.

As for the 2009 tc coupe that set to go on sale this May, prices for both versions remain the same as the 2008 models meaning that the tC equipped with a 5-speed manual transmission has a base MSRP of $17,000, while the four-speed automatic transmission model carries an MSRP of $17,800.

The third limited-production Scion for 2008, the xD Release Series 1.0 (xD RS 1.0) is set to go on sale this June with prices set at $16,549 with a manual gearbox and $17,349 with an automatic transmission.

Scion has differentiated the RS 1.0 from its other siblings with a “hot-lava” exterior paint-job, a DAMD body kit, rear spoiler, lower springs and… unique hub-caps. Inside, the 2,000 units of the special edition xD feature Hot Lava accented seats and interior trim, a RAZO Release Series shift knob and an individual numbered badge.

In a previous post we told that you that China’s Great Wall Motors successfully managed to file a European patent on the design of its Toyota Ractis lookalike, the Feel Free minivan (read about it here). Even though Toyota has no plans of importing its Yaris based MPV to Europe, we’re pretty sure that the Japanese firm’s execs won’t be at all happy with this development.

In our search to find out if Toyota has patented any designs at the European trademark office, we discovered that a few weeks prior to Great Walls Motors’ filing, the Japanese automaker had registered the designs of the Yaris Sedan, HiLux pickup truck, the Fortuner SUV and the Innova MPV. With the exception of the HiLux that is already available in Europe, we seriously doubt that Toyota has any intentions of selling the other models on the Old Continent.

Rumors that Toyota will market its Subaru co-developed rear-wheel-drive coupe as a Scion in America have been swirling around the net ever since the two Japanese automakers made their plans official this spring. But now we’ve received word that it’s true. According to our inside source, Toyota officials in the U.S. confirmed that the affordable RWD coupe will indeed arrive in the States in late-2010 / early-2011 as the new Scion TC. Further details weren’t provided but from what we know up until now, both the Toyota / Scion and Subaru variants of the two-seater compact coupe will get an all-new platform with power coming from a new 2.0-liter four-cylinder boxer engine producing around 200HP.

From what we know and unless Toyota is living in some sort of a twilight-zone where the SEMA Show continues forever and ever, the Las Vegas Convention centre closed its doors last Friday, on November 7. But whatever - it’s neither the first nor the last time that an automaker has a snail-like reaction when it comes to releasing info on its SEMA project cars. In the extremely rare case that the you’re interested in seeing how Kenton Parker transformed the Scion xB into a taco-truck that comes complete with a kitchen, click the part that says “Read More…” and you’ll be magically transferred to a dedicated page with pictures and all.