The official unveiling of the Scion FR-S is scheduled for later today, but that hasn’t prevented images from turning up on the internet ahead of time. The car that will be revealed in New York today is officially listed as a concept, so read into that what you will. The styling has been toned down a bit from the FT-86 II Concept that Toyota displayed in Geneva, but the latest concept looks a long way from production to me. The blacked out windows say “don’t expect an accurate rendering of a production interior”, while the sharply arched and creased front fenders would be difficult (expensive, actually) to put into production. As Autoblog’s Zach Bowman points out, those enormous wheels will never see production and the side view mirrors can’t meet DOT standards.

So where does that leave the FT-86? The truth is that no one knows. Maybe it will show up on these shores wearing a Toyota badge, or maybe it will show up here as a Scion. Maybe it will look like one of the recent concepts, or maybe it won’t. Maybe it will be released for sales in 2012, but if this is what Toyota is showing us this late in the game, chances of a 2012 intro aren’t good. I’m still holding out hope that Toyota gets this car right, but it gets harder to believe that each and every time I write a story about it.

Source: SpeedHunters, via Autoblog