The decision to retire Scion was decided, according to a press release issued this morning, in part because the younger customers Scion was intended to draw are content purchasing Toyota cars.
Scion was established more than ten years ago with the goal of luring youthful consumers into the Toyota fold with low-cost compact vehicles and no-haggle pricing.
The brand has had trouble lately. From a high of 173,034 in 2006, Scion sold 56,167 vehicles in 2015.
The compact and ferociously angular first-generation xB was an unexpected hit for the brand at first.
However, a larger second-generation xB and a related model known as the xD did not earn favorable reviews.
Toyota let them age instead of keeping them updated, then briefly tried to revive Scion with niche models.
It introduced the (since-discontinued) iQ city car and the FR-S sports car, neither of which had the potential to generate significant sales.
Toyota gave Scion two new mainstream vehicles to market alongside the FR-S and the current tC coupe this past year.
The Mazda 2 sedan is the iA, and the iM is a Toyota Auris hatchback with a different paint job.
Although the two appeared to be exactly what Scion needed, it may have been too little, too late. In any case, they will stay in the family.
Most Scion vehicles will be rebadged as Toyotas starting in August, which makes sense given that many of them are already offered as Toyota models in other regions.
Despite the fact that the 2017 model-year FR-S, iA, and iM models were not mentioned in today’s statement, they will be offered as Toyotas.
In This Article...
Will Toyota bring the Scion back?
There is currently no new information regarding Toyota bringing the Scion brand back as of 2021. In order to maintain the line’s best-selling models on the market for potential customers once the brand was canceled in 2016, they shifted them over to Toyota.
Toyota launched Scion in 2003, and it operated for a total of 13 years. They did have some success in attracting younger customers during that time. They also had a dealership model, which was more approachable to many people because there was no haggling involved and you could simply go in and purchase the vehicle you desired.
The Scion brand was losing money as Toyota struggled to keep it afloat since they were not selling many cars toward the conclusion of their tenure. Overall, Toyota decided to discontinue the brand out of business considerations. Toyota may introduce some cars in the future that borrow styling ideas from Scion, but I do not anticipate the brand name to make a comeback.
Scion: Was it a failure?
Toyota will assert that Scion wasn’t a failure and that it succeeded in its goal as a laboratory for reaching out to younger customers. However, this writer was present for the brand’s 2003 San Francisco launch as well as numerous presentations and interviews that have since taken place.
Toyota, in my opinion, would have preferred to see Scion prosper as a brand rather than a short-lived experiment. The majority of what follows is editorial: Here are five reasons why the brand wasn’t a sales success—some obvious, others not.
A brand is simply fueled by good products. The Scion brand did, however, offer a few hints of greatness—the early cult following of the perfectly boxy xB and the greatness of the original tC coupe, for instance—but it frequently lacked sufficient product (or offered an evolved product) at the precise moment when the market might have been most receptive.
Scion aimed to provide Americans an upmarket small-car product in a style that they wouldn’t typically find. Back at the xA debut, Scion representatives used the Peugeot 206 as a comparison.
That’s a good start, but thinking back to the original Scion introduction, the company said that performance, functionality, and specs weren’t stressed since they believed that if they were accurate, “the product will pretty much sell itself,” as a spokeswoman put it.
What was the Scion’s replacement at Toyota?
Scion has the lowest average buyer age in the whole auto industry, yet those models would have likely performed just as well as vehicles bearing the Toyota name. For young people on a tight budget, the Corolla series offers models with manual shifters, models with sporty styling, and models that are really economical (or limited budgets given to them by their parents). Most of the time Scion was a brand, the Corolla outsold anything Scion by a ratio of four or five to one. In Toyota showrooms, the Corollas were right next to the Scion tC and other compact vehicles. As a starter vehicle, the Corolla is difficult to compete with, and Scion never had much of a chance.
Toyota should be commended for attempting Scion and even more for giving up when the experiment fell short of achieving the true objective, which was to create a low-cost sporty line that Toyota could sever from Toyota like its Lexus brand.
Why did Scion brand disappear?
Despite originally having great sales, Scion’s statistics will ultimately fall. Only over 45,000 units were sold in 2010. Most people think that the Toyota gas pedal issue and the Great Recession combined to cause the decline.
The vehicles themselves contributed to the issue as well. Scion only periodically updated the exterior designs of its current models rather than continuing to redesign them. These updated models consistently ended up being less well-liked by customers than the originals.
Scion released new vehicles in an effort to rescue itself. It debuted the iQ in 2012 with a focus on commuters in major cities. Around the same period, Scion also debuted the FR-S sports car. These models fell far short of the sales required for the company to remain viable.
Scion appeared to have lost the intended market for its products. These young clients were content buying pre-owned Toyota cars. Because of this, the parent company’s decision to incorporate Scion’s vehicles into its core lineup made more sense. In 2016, the Scion brand was formally dropped.
Are Toyota Scion vehicles reliable?
Toyota’s 2004 debut of the youthfully spirited Scion brand received an overall 7/10 grade from Car & Driver. Scion produced a number of reasonably priced, attractive, dependable, and sporty cars up until 2016, when the brand was once again integrated into the parent corporation.
Although it has only been around for a little over ten years, Scion has earned a reputation for itself as Toyota’s attempt to court hip, young drivers with a new lineup of cost-effective yet eye-catching cars. Several Scion cars were rebranded as Toyotas even after the brand was brought back under the umbrella of the Toyota mothership in 2016. The FR-S evolved into the 86, the iA becoming a Yaris variant, and the iM into a Corolla variant.
How dependable are Scion engines?
The Scion tC has received great marks for its reliability despite having a high depreciation rate. The tC received an above-average rating of 4 out of 5 from RepairPal. During its eleven years of manufacturing, the car only sometimes experienced catastrophic problems.
What does Scion mean in context?
Scion and heir both imply “one who obtains property from an ancestor” or “one who is entitled to inherit property,” hence there is a significant overlap between their meanings. They do, however, also differ slightly from one another. Both terms can apply to a descendant, although heir is more fitting for a kid or relative who receives an inheritance. Additionally, scion is sometimes used to refer to “a descendant of a wealthy, aristocratic, or important family” even if one may be the heir to a family of modest or large means.
A scion is described as “a detachable living piece of a plant (such as a bud or shoot) connected to a stock through grafting” in the context of horticulture. A plant’s “main stem,” “a plant from which cuttings are produced,” and “a plant or plant part connected with a scion in grafting” are all examples of “stock,” in contrast.
We pronounce scion as sajn in the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). For those who find it difficult to understand IPA, another way to think of it is that the word “scion” is spoken with the emphasis on the sigh and the un as a single syllable.
Why is it called the Toyota 86?
The Toyota 86 was named after a previous generation of the Toyota Corolla, a car from the same manufacturer that is somewhat underestimated when compared to more recent models. Even though it doesn’t sound like an exciting car now, the Toyota Corolla GT-S from the 1980s was surprisingly agile in its day. The Toyota 86 was first influenced by the AE86, a model of the Corolla that was known as the Corolla GT-S. The 86 model name so has part of the brand’s history behind it, despite the fact that the numbers may appear to be fairly arbitrary.
The Scion FRS is dependable.
Unfortunately, even when compared to other vehicles in its class, the Toyota Scion FR-S has a somewhat low reliability rating. The Scion FR-S is by no means a horrible car, but if you value dependability and dependability in your automobile, you probably shouldn’t buy one.
Currently available sports automobiles that are among the most dependable include:
- Honda’s S2000
- The Mk3 Toyota Supra
- more recent Ford Mustangs
Whatever vehicle you decide on, you’ll still need to get a reliable auto insurance plan. Check out the Jerry app to obtain a selection of insurance quotes that are suitable for you in a matter of minutes. The typical user saves $887 yearly.
Who is the owner of Scion?
The Scion moniker was to be discontinued in August 2016 by Toyota, the Scion brand’s parent corporation, and the majority of Scion-branded vehicles have been rebadged as Toyotas. The rear-drive FR-S, a Toyota 86 rebadged, is a two-door coupe that is capable of drifting. The iM (rebadged Corolla iM) is a respectable attempt at an inexpensive hatchback in the European design. The tiny sedan, which Mazda produced and rebadged as the Yaris iA, is fun to drive and has outstanding fuel efficiency.