Supercharged Scion!

The boxy stylings of Toyota/Scion’s bB are rooted in a counter cultural marketing swing by the automotive giants turned tastemakers. Since the cubic revolution we have seen a number of modifications make their way on to these Japanese hipster boxes, and Californian Mike Ma has done something truly special with this Gulf coloured example.

Ma tells us "The idea for this build this time out was to have a tribute-built car to pay tribute to something of motor sports heritage, that’s why I went with the Gulf Oil scheme. The retro idea is carried out throughout car but with modern refinements to help tie in both old school era and new.”

That glossy robin’s egg blue with the searing orange striped down the roof was made famous on the John Wyer Racing Ford GT40s and mighty Porsche 917s which stormed some of the most famous race tracks in the world. Even the iconic Steve McQueen rolled in the Gulf orange and blue as Steve Delaney in the 1971 cult classic movie “Le Mans”.

While McQueen had a raging  4.5 litre flat twelve cylinder engine with dual overhead cams, Mike has to make do with a Greddy supercharger system, a K&N intake system, and a DC Sports header and exhaust system all strapped to Toyota‘s 1NZ-FE 1.5 liter twin-cam unit.

We’re not sure what Steve McQueen would have thought of the chromed Air Zenith air compressor but there’s no doubt the racer in him would approve of the custom-made Oink Fabrications four-point roll bar and Sparco Evo3 seats.

Okay, so perhaps it’s not really a Gulf Oil race car. We can forgive that because it’s boosted and it’s a stick shift. Credit assigned where credit is due. "I originally built the car back in 2006 as a full show car. It's been through many phases and what I have now I'm truly happy with. This was my original idea since the beginning but also the most expensive."

The devil is in the details. Ma saw an opportunity to craft a vehicle which boldly stands out from the lemmings. It may only share an exterior paint scheme with its powerful similarly-hued forbearers, but inside, the spirit of racing lives on.

So far this Scion is the only example of the box brigade that we actually like. We always like the look of something different though so if you've got some suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments below.