Toyota Motor Corp said yesterday it will wind down its Scion brand in the United States, ending a 12-year effort to create a separate identity for small cars aimed at young buyers.
Advertisement
Jim Lentz, founding vice president of Scion and now CEO of Toyota Motor North America, said the move isn’t a step backward for Scion but rather a leap forward for Toyota.
Toyota says current Scion owners will be able to service and fix their vehicles at Toyota dealerships.
Beginning with the 2017 model year, Scion’s lineup of vehicles will be sold under the Toyota brand. The experiment taught Toyota about the wants and needs of younger buyers who sought out fun, practical and attractive vehicles that were the polar opposite of the Camry. They are the Scion FR-S coupe, Scion iA sedan and Scion iM hatchback. Scion gave us a look at the C-HR concept, which was supposed to presage a new compact crossover for the brand.
Despite troubles in recent years, the announcement came as a shock since the brand introduced two new models for 2016, the iA Sedan and iM Hatchback. “But kudos to Toyota for admitting that it was superfluous and they were wasting a lot of money trying to make the brand survive”.
I’m not sure why Toyota needed to launch a brand to acquire that information. Yes, the FR-S is a blast to drive, but beyond that, Scion has become “other Toyota” instead of something truly different. Scion also doesn’t have any SUVs, which are rapidly becoming the most popular style of vehicle in the U.S.
The 22 Scion sales, marketing, distribution, strategy, and product and accessories planning employees will be offered jobs with Toyota, according to a press release issued Wednesday. Perhaps most crucially, the US economy cratered, upending younger consumers buying power, and Scion hasn’t had a 6-figure sales year since 2008 when 113,904 units were delivered, WardsAuto data shows. Toyota says it already told the Scion and Toyota dealer councils, and they both supported the decision.
Over the years, Scion has consistently been the youngest brand in the auto industry… with an average age of 36 years old.
Advertisement
The Scion brand is no more. Sales of all models combined peaked at just over 173,000 in 2006. The brand is sold only through Toyota’s 1,004 existing dealerships in Canada, the US, and Puerto Rico.
