“Scion has allowed us to fast track ideas that would have been challenging to test through the Toyota network”, said Jim Lentz, founding vice president of Scion and now CEO, Toyota Motor North America, in a company statement. The Scion C-HR Concept that debuted at the L.A. Auto Show will be marketed as a Toyota when it enters production in the near future.
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It’s official: Toyota’s ostensibly youth-oriented brand, Scion, will come to an end this year.
Besides the emphasis on genuinely creative ads focused on youth customers, Scion will be remembered as the brand that sold badge-engineered Toyota models.
Toyota launched Scion in 2003 as an experiment in how to reach a younger audience.
The only model that won’t make the jump from Scion to the Toyota brand will be the tC sports coupe, which ends production in August. Scion owners will continue to receive those services from Toyota dealerships and service centers.
Scion also discontinued half its product line for model year 2016 by killing off the subcompact iQ, the xD subcompact hatch, and the xB, which was better known as the toaster. “They, like their parents, have come to appreciate the Toyota brand”. But now he says the Toyota brand can sufficiently attract the younger buyer with its switch to more aggressive styling and high-tech features. The catch: They’d have to wait a couple years for new product because Toyota’s resources were limited and the company needed to “prioritize”, Toyoda said in a November 2013 interview with Automotive News.
Rumors have been swirling since late last night that Toyota is set to shut down Scion. Scion boasted some success in that regard; Toyota says the brand has (or had, I guess) the youngest average buyer age in the business.
Scion sales peaked at 173,034 units in 2006 before plummeting to a recession-induced low of 45,678 in 2010.
It’s not clear what will happen to Scion’s 1,004 dealers. One model won’t make the cut – this year will be the tC’s last.
That left many buyers with the view that Scion was a lesser brand than Toyota, Carter conceded.
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Toyota plans to drop the slow-selling Scion brand this summer and blend most of its current vehicles into the Toyota lineup, the automaker said today. Customers need not worry, as the service and fix process will be unaffected.
