Toyota bB / Scion xB

Tamiya kit #58265 is the Toyota bB or as they’re called in the US Scion xB. My wife has one of these so I decided to make a little mini version of it.

These kits were never sold in the US due to licensing issues and they are quite rare to find on ebay as well. I had to pay quite a bit for mine from a seller in Hong Kong.

The Tamiya recommended paint scheme is black with really cheesy flame stickers…. nooooooo thank you! My wife’s car is “black cherry”, so I went to a couple of Toyota dealerships and bought some touch up paint. 3P2 was their color code and the tiny bottles come with a nail polish style brush. So I applied some to a spare piece of lexan I had, wanted to make sure it didn’t crack or peel as soon as the lexan was bent. It worked!

I had to do a few coats of it and I did a back coat of flat black, otherwise depending on angle and light you can see through the body. The Tamiya flat black doesn’t bind well to the car paint and the car paint won’t flex nicely so this car is DNC – Do not crash!

The Tamiy Toyota bB/Scion xB sits on top of the M03-L chassis, I used the suspension from my M03-R instead of the stock dampers. I also added heaps of electronics. I added the TLU-01 and TLU-02 light units, which around my house cause a tremendous amount of interference. Around this time I ended up buying the Spektrum DX3S radio system, which comes with a free SR300 reciever. As you can see in the photo below there plenty inside.

As for LEDs I have:

Two sets of 5mm white for headlights and reverse lights.

One set of 5mm red for tail/break lights.

Two sets of 3mm orange led for signal/hazards.