The Scion xD gets good mileage (rated 27 mpg city, 33 mpg highway) while offering useful interior space for four people and their belongings. Below, the instrument panel.

TOYOTA

Toyota’s creation of the Scion brand seemed like a great idea. While Lexus caters to the rich and Toyota sates the masses’ appetite for mainstream transportation, Scion is supposed to tap into a contingent of young buyers with short money and a penchant for the funky. Then (goes the theory) when those Scion buyers eventually get better jobs and have their face tattoos removed, they move up the ladder to Toyota. Or to Lexus.

That’s the general game plan, but in the fifth year of young Scion’s existence, there already seems to be some confusion over the brand’s direction. A caveman could explain the difference between Toyota and Lexus (“Lexus nicer! More expensive!”), yet increasingly it takes someone with a Ph.D. in marketing to explain the difference between Scion and Toyota.

For example, the 2008 Scion xD is a five-door hatchback with a 128-horsepower 1.8-liter 4-cylinder engine and a standard five-speed manual transmission. My test car had a few options including XM Satellite Radio and cost $17,732.

The base 2009 Toyota Matrix is a five-door hatchback with the same engine (albeit with four more horsepower) and a five-speed manual transmission. Add a cold weather package and XM radio, and it retails for $17,608.

The Scion seemingly gives you more for your money (power windows, power door locks and keyless entry are standard on the xD, optional on the Matrix), while the Toyota is better looking and has rear disc brakes instead of the Scion’s drums. Then again, Scion embraces a no-bargaining dealership policy (like Saturn), while you can haggle on Toyotas.

Driving an xD versus a Matrix doesn’t mark you as anti-establishment any more than wearing an Old Navy sweater instead of one from the Gap.

The xD is pragmatic transportation. It is relatively light (about 2,500 pounds), so the small engine feels perky and frenetic. It gets good mileage (rated 27 mpg city, 33 mpg highway) while offering useful interior space for four people and their belongings. The Pioneer head unit for the stereo looks kind of old school in this age of the artfully integrated automotive media system, but it allows for plenty of expandability through extra amps and subwoofers, and it sounds fine for a car at this price.

Whatever the xD’s redeeming qualities, nobody will look at you behind the wheel and assume you’re driving back from an all-night cemetery rave where you set your hair on fire as a performance piece and danced to your signature mashup of jackhammer noise and whale songs. The xD is about as outrageous as a share of Microsoft stock.

And what’s wrong with that? Nothing, per se. But Scion is supposed to be more than a Chevy to Toyota’s Buick. It’s supposed to be the place where Toyota can unleash its creativity, come what may. And these days, that responsibility seems to rest primarily with the xB, now in its larger, Americanized second generation.

I’ll confess: I don’t get it. I don’t understand the appeal of the blocky, willfully ugly xB. But if I don’t understand the attraction, perhaps the xB is right on target, because I don’t have piercings or tattoos. I use proper grammar in text messages. I once attended a Dave Matthews acoustic concert. Frankly, Scion doesn’t want me. The xB is for people who don’t care what anybody thinks, which means fauxhawk-wearing 21-year-olds or grumpy retirees.

The original xB that touched down in California in 2003 was a wee wagon with surprising interior space, thanks to styling heavy on right angles. It had a 1.5-liter 4 with only 108 hp, but then it weighed less than 2,500 pounds.

The new one is a behemoth by comparison: about 550 pounds heavier and a foot longer. The sharp edges of the old shape have been buffed and chamfered into something softer and less assertive. There’s a 62-percent bigger engine with 50 more horsepower. The whole car is scaled up to American size, for American roads and American drivers. Toyota spends a lot of money on research, and research undoubtedly told them that Americans wanted a bigger car.

Well, of course. Whoever took part in a focus group and said, “You know, I’d really like less room in my car”?

The price, too, has grown, by $1,770 with an automatic and $1,620 with the manual. That kind of dough isn’t a big deal when you’re buying a Lexus, but $1,770 is a major hit when you’re shopping for a sub-$20,000 car. At least the xB still delivers a lot of bang for the buck. My test car, with the automatic transmission, carried a sticker price of $17,180, and that includes an impressive complement of safety equipment side-curtain air bags, four-wheel disc brakes, traction and stability control with brake assist) and convenience items — air conditioning, cruise control, power windows and locks, remote keyless entry. It also had a few options, like alloy wheels, that pushed the price to $20,010. You could get that number back below 20 grand, though, and save yourself some embarrassment by forgoing the $480 TRD sport muffler.

On that front, here’s a rule for prospective street tuners: When your car has the aerodynamic profile of Joba Chamberlain’s hat, you should not install a sport muffler. The five extra horsepower you might unleash will not justify the added noise and will only increase your humiliation when you’re dusted by a ’94 Chevy Corsica.

Also, save your money and skip the four-speed automatic transmission. It smothers whatever fun might lurk within this package and further hampers an engine that already has its work cut out.