Dust-Covered Scion FR-S Is Not Even Ten Years Old; Does It Make for a (Great) Barn Find?

By the turn of the millennia, it was more than evident to anyone that Japan was gaining ground in the carmaking business, and it was only a matter of time before the Asian nation would leap into first place. In 2008, Toyota surpassed General Motors – the giant that reigned supreme over Planet Piston since the 30s – and never stepped down.

The brand from the Land of the Rising Sun didn’t gain the title by accident, and its acerb fight for dominance wasn’t without hinders and mishaps. One of Toyota’s fails was the Scion, a brand invented to attract young buyers toward the GT 86 model (developed In cooperation with Subaru, who sold the badge-engineered GT 86 as the BRZ model).

In 1999, Toyota initiated Project Genesis, a marketing campaign that targeted a revival of the brand’s sales among young Americans. As fate had it, the initiative failed spectacularly. Still, the Japanese auto giant learned its lesson and gave it one more go, launching the Scion sub-brand.

Among the models offered, one particularly interesting today is the Scion FR-S, the American cousin of the Toyota GT 86 and the Subaru BRZ. The sportscar was planned as an affordable solution for buyers who wanted piston-powered fun on a budget but didn’t like used cars as the primary go-to means of getting it.

The two-liter boxer gasoline engine developed by Subaru, with an injection system built by Toyota’s Lexus marque, was the only option for the appealing multi-brand automobile. The architecture stayed true to the wise principle ‘If it works, don’t change it’ that sportscars have been born from since the beginning of internal combustion.

The small engine in the front offered the advantage of a low center of gravity; thanks to its horizontally opposed design, the power (197 hp/200 PS) went to the rear wheels. The six-speed gearbox sat in between (it came in either automatic or fun-and-games-manual shapes), and this arrangement allowed a 53/47 weight distribution over the axles.

Like any respectable sportscar, the FR-S (which got its name from the aforementioned drivetrain layout of Front engine, Rear-wheel drive, Sport) offered a second row of seats. The car debuted in 2013 on the American market but didn’t make the tidal waves Toyota was hoping for. Despite its sleek looks and athleticism (thanks to some neat mechanical features and clever electronics), the Scion FR-S was a disappointment.

In 2017, the FR-S and the entire Scion Brand stepped into history. During its four-year existence, the sportscar sold just under 62,000 units. Toyota didn’t like that figure – it wasn’t a good display of performance from the conglomerate bragging about being the world’s leading carmaker. The Scion name was sacked and thrown in a symbolic barn to collect dust for all eternity. In all fairness, the cars would be continued as regular Toyota models and not simply scrapped altogether.

It’s not usual for barn finds hunters to come across fewer than a decade-old cars. Purists of the crankshaft creed would discard them as ‘nonsense.’ They wouldn’t even fathom putting something like a dusty abandoned Scion FR-S in the same conversation with the expression "1971 ‘Vette."

And yet, the incident did happen – I am referring, of course, to a Scion find. How, when, and why the car got brutally and definitively abandoned by its last owner is unclear, but the guys at WD Detailing found it and gave it a complimentary refreshment.

They also gave it an accidental face-peeling during the removal of the paint-protective film that skinned the paint off the front bumper. However, unlike other genuine barn finds from the car-revitalizing duo, this Scion became their possession.

Naturally(-aspirated), the two-liter double-injected motor runs – little surprise there, although chances were that the reason for the car to be ditched would be an engine breakdown – and the FR-S is in decent shape overall. From a fifty-fifty standpoint, the Scion doesn’t even hint at its episodic retirement after the methodical cleansing from the vloggers.

Although electronics-clad cars are not recommended to get an engine bay shower, the detailers have done a great job removing dust and debris from the flat-four and its ancillaries. To complement the mechanical splendor shining bright, the golden Sparco wheels make the car stand out even better.

The engine in this Scion FR-S is a small but feisty boxer fitted with double injection – port and direct – for optimal power delivery. Dubbed the D-4S, the dual system relied on the chamber injectors as the main workhorse in the 100-hp-per-liter effort. When the torque band demanded extra fuel, the port injector came to life to deliver the claimed 151 lb-ft (205 Nm).

Not the most impressive of features, but what do you want from a four-pot square-bore high-revving two-liter without forced induction? The 3.385-inch (86 mm) piston diameter was the same as its stroke, and the peak power came at 7,000 RPM. The crank-twisting maximum was achieved at 6,500 RPM, and the 12.5:1 compression was a good incentive for the performance.

Backed by dual variable valve timing that regulated intake and exhaust valve activity, the Subaru H4 engine (that’s horizontal-four) combined the best of both worlds: performance at any engine speed and great mileage (a claimed 34 mpg, or 8.3 liters/100 km) when the gas pedal was feathered.