Toyota has announced that it is pulling the plug on Scion, its offshoot vehicle brand aimed at younger drivers. Over the course of Scion’s 12-plus years on the market, Toyota says shoppers bought 1.1 million cars, but sales dribbled to just 56,167 units from seven nameplates in 2015.
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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.
Scion owners have an average age of 36, according to Toyota, one of the youngest demographics in the industry. Adding the FR-S coupe co-developed with Subaru and the little iQ gave Scion some life two years later and in 2015 the Mazda-built iA sedan and the iM hatchback arrived. The Scion tC small coupe will go out of production in August, Toyota said.
“It’s been a great run and I’m proud that the spirit of Scion will live on through the knowledge and products soon to be available through the Toyota network”, said Scion vice president Andrew Gilleland.
Toyota’s decision to transition the brand is in response to changing customer needs.
Toyota will scrap the youth-oriented nameplate. The brand is being phased out, with most Scion models set to be rebadged as Toyotas beginning in August. Even though it listened to customer feedback on its first models in developing its new cars, Scion’s second generation of larger, more rounded, more milquetoast cars – starting from the much bigger xB in 2007 – were not very well received. “During this time of transition, we will work closely with them to support this process and help communicate this change to customers”.
There are four Scion franchises in central OH, each paired with Toyota franchises.
Toyota is portraying the move is a victory, saying that younger buyers who may have shunned the Toyota brand at the time of Scion’s inception now have a more positive view of it. Scion’s spiffy new C-HR concept vehicle is another model that will reportedly be joining Toyota’s fleet.
“I just think the product was never really as compelling as it could have been or should have been”, Kelley Blue Book analyst Karl Brauer said in an interview.
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Brauer says Scion was a victim of the success of the Toyota brand. It appears that Scion’s team, some 22 strong across marketing, sales and distribution roles, will be offered positions within Toyota, as well.
