Scion brand killed off by Toyota due to plummeting sales

But the experiment wasn’t a total failure, as Toyota Motor North America CEO Jim Lentz explained.

Toyota initially positioned Scion as a young, hip alternative to its flagship brand, but it didn’t really work out like that.

Half of Scion buyers were aged below 35, a group which accounted for 27 per cent of Toyota sales and was expected to grow, the company said.

Unlike their 2003 counterparts, the latest crop of young people want vehicles that are “fun to drive but also more practical”, said Toyota in a statement on the decision.

As part of the brand transition, beginning in August 2016, Scion vehicles will be rebadged as Toyotas. But I suppose Scion cars will endure in some fashion, with FR-S, the iM and the iA surviving the brand collapse. 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.

“Customers are going to the same place to purchase the vehicle, same place to service the auto”, Hubbell said, adding that there shouldn’t be much disruption for the consumer.

The Top-Selling Car At Scion Is the Toyota Celica GTThose who owned or remember the Toyota Celica know that the Scion tC (as in Toyota Celica) was never a new vehicle.

Scion owners have an average age of 36, according to Toyota, one of the youngest demographics in the industry. The brand was available nationwide by 2004 and later expanded into Canada in 2010. Outstanding warranties will obviously still be honoured, and after-sales service will be performed at Toyota dealerships.

Although the brand started off strong, posting stellar sales figures from 2004 to 2008, the great recession and the lack fresh product led to a sharp drop in sales. “They, like their parents, have come to appreciate the Toyota brand and its… quality, dependability and reliability”.

Toyota has made it official: the Scion brand is dead. But was down 24 per cent from 73,507 in 2012 and down 68 per cent from its high point of 173,034 units in 2006. The Toyota Care maintenance program, which provides two years of free maintenance, originated with Scion, he said. But Kelley Blue Book senior analyst Karl Brauer said this is the first time a U.S.-specific brand launched by a Japanese manufacturer has been scrapped.

USA Today notes that goal was indeed achieved-in some respects.