Scion Comes to End of the Road

Officially, Toyota says the reason the Scion brand is going away because of a change in that demographic’s attitude-they’re no longer turned off by buying the sorts of vehicles their parents do, making Scion superfluous, says the News.

“Our goal was to make Toyota and our dealers stronger by learning how to better attract and engage young customers”. So, with new Toyota vehicles evolving to feature the dynamic styling and young peoples’ desire…it only made sense.

But while the new models boosted brand deliveries in the fourth quarter, last year Scion still finished 2015 3.2% below 2014 at 56,167 due to declining saless of its existing lineup, which includes the 5-year-old second-generation tC and the FR-S. Hubbell said Scion’s no-haggle pricing strategy, dubbed Pure Price, will not carry over once the cars become Toyota products. Furthermore, the 1,004 dealerships that sell Scions will continue to provide service to Scion owners.

Is this sort of like Volkswagen bragging that its Tiguan sales set a record in January when it struggled to sell anything but Tiguans, which don’t come with a diesel option in the U.S.?

Introduced in 2003, the Scion line pitched a range of smaller, under-$20,000 cars to young buyers, from the xA mini-hatchback and the breadbox-like xB to the respected FR-S rear-wheel-drive sports auto, sister to Subaru’s BRZ. After all, most Scions were just mildly rebadged Toyotas to begin with, so not much is actually changing – aside from the sign outside the dealer. Toyota’s aim with Scion was to entice young and or first-time vehicle buyers to the Toyota brand.

Scion past year discontinued the xB, but new brand Senior Vice President Andrew Gilleland was hopeful the forthcoming C-HR small CUV would replace it as a must-have product. Toyota said Wednesday that it plans to “transition” back to the Toyota brand.

Instead, those models will launch in North America with Toyota badges, and Scion will officially disappear from Canada and the United States by August this year. Compared to its high point of 173,034 sales in 2006, the youth-oriented auto has since stagnated. But the ailing Scion could not recover and now the company has chose to launch its C-HR concept under Toyota brand. At 29, the tC sports coupe has the lowest-average age buyer in the industry.