“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 of Toyota Motor North America.
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Scion, Toyota’s spin-off brand aimed at a younger generation, had become too old and needed to be put down.
According to a sales history of Scion provided in a Toyota news release, annual new-car sales for the brand peaked in 2006 at 173,034. Mr. Lentz further said that the company’s main aim is to make Toyota and its dealers stronger by learning how to attract and appeal the youth buyers. Automotive News says the iA, iM and FR-S models will wear Toyota badges for the 2017 model year when they arrive in dealerships this August.
The move comes just after parent Toyota attempted to reinvigorate Scion with two new models-the iA sedan and iM hatchback-and proposed that it would get a version of the upcoming C-HR subcompact crossover. The tC will see one final release under the Scion brand, but will cease production this August.
The service and fix process for Scion customers will be unaffected by this change as customers will continue to visit Toyota dealerships’ service departments.
In recent years, the brand has struggled. While its products were very closely related to Toyota vehicles they had a unique, slightly chunky, style, created to be easily customizable. Only time will tell whether Toyota will use the Scion models to replace current Toyota models, or if they will join the lineup in addition to Toyota’s jam-packed offerings.
It helped that Scion’s tightly-focused branding and marketing strategy hit it off with its Gen X target groups, in the way a Toyota campaign with its broad demographic requirements could never have done.
Toyota is notifying dealers today (Feb. 3), Carter said. The average age of a Scion customer is 36, Toyota said. Toyota said Wednesday that it plans to “transition” back to the Toyota brand. The FR-S will be rebadged as a Toyota.
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Incredible products and premium features at value prices didn’t cut it. We’re saddened by the loss of the Scion brand, yet something had to give. Toyota sold just 56,167 Scion vehicles in 2015, reflecting a broader drop in sales of small cars in a USA market that is tilting towards larger sport utility vehicles and trucks.
