As I wandered through the 2008 Scion Slam Basketball Tournament held August 23, 2008 in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, I was amazed at all the cool schwag being handed out by the local Scion dealership. I’m simply in love with my backpack filled with CDs featuring the Backyard Bangers, MP3 cases, mini basketballs and different ways I can customize my own Scion in a glimpse.
But another part of the show is the Scion Slammer Car Show held the same day at Fort Bragg and featured many customized Scions. As I walked through the rows of gorgeous tricked out cars I came across one that was sheer beauty.
A dark gray Scion XB covered with scenes from Heavenly Sword and Prince of Persia. I immediately began asking around to find the owner of this car and found him. Larry Burkes, a representative of the local Rick Hendricks Toyota/Scion dealer here in Fayetteville, North Carolina and member of Scion Customs.
As I spoke to him, I’m thinking of ways of customizing my Scion XA to feature my favorite Final Fantasy characters across mine. Oh yeah, Vincent Valentine from Dirge of Cerberus across the side doors and Yuffie from Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children on the hood of my car with her ninja star the Conformer resting on her shoulder ready to fight. And why not? I get chased down the freeway as it is by people (non-gamers) wanting to know what a Chocobo is after reading my bumper sticker that reads: “My other ride is a Chocobo because the Airship is in the shop.” So why not? In fact that may be a different story later on when I get enough money to paint said characters on my car.
But until then I spoke with Burkes to find out more about the design that also flows into the car doors itself and is framed by the pattern from the Dark Prince’s chains across the edges of the car.
“First of all, I came up with the idea because it has always been concept of Scion to customize and get wild with your cars,” he said. “So I chose Prince of Persia and Heavenly Sword because they’re pretty cool games,” Burkes said. “So on my Scion I customized it with a lot of neon ... there’s even neon going into the cup holders. Under the car there are strobe lights that highlight the graphics at night. The artwork also comes inside the door and into the car.”
He said he chose both games to feature on the car because of his love for the graphics and game play.
“I’ve played that game, its a pretty cool game and I love the graphics and wanted it to come inside the door. This is my own personal customization and it screams gamer to me,” Burke said. “I’m a type of (gamer) that love war games but I also love Guitar Hero. There is most definitely more adults who play games than children, I’ve had people come up to me and admit playing the games (displayed) on my car and it definitely symbolize the gamer. My Scion team is a team of 50, and everyone in the team plays ... if I hadn’t come up with the idea to put my games on my car I’m sure they would have.”
The next Scion Slam Basketball tournament and car show will be held:
- Fort Rucker, Alabama on September 6, 2008
- Fort Hood, Texas on September 13, 2008
- Fort Riley, Kansas on September 20, 2008
- Fort Lewis, Washington on September 27, 2008
- San Diego, California on October 4, 2008
Site [Scion Slam]
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