Toyota pulls the plug on Scion small car brand

Toyota says it is killing its Scion brand of cars.

Jim Lentz, Toyota’s North American chief executive officer, said in the statement that “Scion has allowed us to fast-track ideas that would have been challenging to test through the Toyota network”. “As a part of the team that established Scion in Canada, our goal was to make Toyota and our dealers stronger by learning how to better attract and engage young customers”. With more than a million cars sold, 70 percent of Scions were purchased by customers new to Toyota and 50 percent were under 35 years old. 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.

This means as of this coming August, most Scion models will be badged as Toyotas – including the FR-S, iM and the upcoming C-HR subcompact crossover – for the 2017 model year.

Considering that Scion just introduced two new models, the quite-good iA and the less-exciting iM, it’s a surprising move by Toyota. He said while Gen Xers wouldn’t touch the same brand their parents and grandparents liked, Millennials see Toyota more favorably than they did Scion. The 1,004 dealers are all within existing Toyota stores.

But critically panned design choices – such as the cramped iQ mini auto – set the brand on a path toward irrelevancy for the average new-vehicle shopper. While you may be losing your brand name, you’ll be gaining an even bigger backing from Toyota, and then maybe further down the line from Toyota’s luxury brand, Lexus.

A logo is pictured at AutoNation Toyota dealership in Cerritos, California December 9, 2015.

Toyota Motor Corp.is discontinuing Scion, the USA youth-targeted brand just entering its teen years, as sales slump to less than one-third their peak reached a decade ago. Sales peaked in 2007 with 173,034 units sold and began to decline shortly after. Scion regional representatives will assume different responsibilities in their respective Toyota sales offices.

It’s not unusual for automakers to kill a brand or pull it out of a particular market.

Scion’s demise doesn’t necessarily spell trouble for other small vehicle brands, like BMW AG’s Mini or Daimler AG’s Smart, said Ivan Drury, an analyst for Edmunds.com.

As for parts and fix support from Toyota, fret not, those will still be offered, as it is a matter of a brand transition more than anything else.