Toyota announced today that it’s getting rid of the Scion brand, all current Scions will become Toyotas, except the tC, which will be dropped at the end of the year.
Yup. Easy come, easy go.
That’s not as big a deal for Toyota as Pontiac was for GM. I’ve yet to see a standalone Scion dealer. Everyone I know of is also a Toyota dealer. They may have a different show room, but they house the same area. Whereas there were many standalone Pontiac dealers. If all you owned was a Pontiac dealership when GM dropped them you were either scrambling to find a new brand to sell or you were out of business.
I think they just misread the market. Instead of capturing younger buyers, they ended up competing with their own vehicles for older buyers. I test drove both the Camry and tC when I was shopping, and bought the tC.
I thought the concept was good…smaller cheaper vehicles. But families started buying them as second or even third vehicles. One of my peers at work has a Vette he drives during the summer… and a Scion XB the rest of the year. Just him and his wife. She has a 2012 Mustang.
Seems a shame. There’s a review of the Scion iA in the March 2016* Consumers Reports. Seems like a nice car. $17.5k, 35 mpg, and the one in the picture is an awesome shade of blue. Of course its just a re-badged Mazda apparently. I have trouble keeping up with names of vehicles that just use random letters and numbers. Doesn’t really inspire affection / sentimentality.
*(Its barely February and I have the “March” magazine? What a cranky old man I am becoming.)
Perhaps there will be some deals to be had on “orphaned” Scions???
Better deals might come on them when they’re Toyotas - Scion had a ‘no haggle’ policy, not so for Toyota.
Oooooh! So Scion was to Toyota as Saturn was to GM?
Like TSMB mentioned, they missed their target market most of the time. The only interesting car IMHO they ever sold was the FR-S. The Xa was just an also ran in the hatchback market. The first generation Xb was an underpowered breadbox, The Tc wasn’t particularly sporty, The Iq was a glorified golf cart, the Xd was another also ran as well.
I’ve never met a 20 something that actually owned a Scion other than the FR-S.
@“Ed Frugal” Sort of , but Saturn was a much more expensive and involved endeavor. And Saturn actually worked at least for the first few years, The vehicles they sold were much more reliable than anything else GM was making at the time, and on par with their Japanese competition. Saturn had it’s own engines, own platforms, and own transmissions, nothing was brought in or shared with other GM lines at the time. But then GM reverted back to platform sharing and badge engineering and Saturn no longer anything unique about it.
I like both xBs - LOTS of headroom!
So, Scion Was A Toyota Brand? I Wouldn’t Know One If I Saw One.
I don’t think I’ll miss them. I have no idea where a dealer for those would be. It’s got to be a several hours drive. They have no dealer support in my area, just like the other Asian cars.
CSA
The other thing they misread was the fact that younger people aren’t as interested in cars as previous generations were. I know a lot of people who have kids who do not have licenses even though they’re old enough. They’re just not interested. And a lot of 25-and-less people are choosing not to own a car at all, which saves them a hell of a lot of money. You can’t sell your product to a group that doesn’t want to buy anyone’s product.
They also slipped after the first run of cars. The xB was, yes, an “underpowered breadbox.” But in the right trim, it was a cool underpowered breadbox. Then they rounded off the square edges that made it look cool, and it was just another wannabe trying to be hip and falling short.
The FRS was a good effort, but it was too expensive. 25 grand is a LOT for a car when the target market is making close to minimum wage if they’re even employed at all and having to pay ungodly rent for a dumpy apartment because the housing crisis drove a bunch of former homeowners into rentals and therefore drove up prices.
They might want that car, but they’re more likely to go with a Veloster that starts at 7 grand less, still looks cool, and is still fun to drive.
They have no dealer support in my area, just like the other Asian cars.
You should move to America.
Fodaddy, you couldn’t prove they were better than the other GMs by the Saturn I bought.
“There’s a review of the Scion iA in the March 2016 Consumers Reports. Of course its just a re-badged Mazda apparently.”
Yup!
As CR put it…“The iA is manufactured by Mazda, using Mazda parts…and that’s a good thing…”
For some reason or other Mazda decided to not market their Mazda 2 model in The US, but we are getting it anyway, albeit with Scion badges on it. CR was fairly enthusiastic about the car.
The majority of America is not in a major metro area. Asian brands for some reason or another don’t seem to be located in cities of less than at least 100,000. So for a lot of people, that means a drive. Now GM, Chrysler, and Ford dealers can be (or used to be) in very small hamlets. There was one Chevy dealer a few miles away in a town of about 300. You’ll never find a Toyota dealer there.
I liked the idea of owning a standard shift FRS but not was not ready to have it as a daily driver yet. I think the reliability is not that great.
Most of the xB Scions in our neck of the woods are driven by middle age to older drivers and delivery people. Same with Kia Soul.
“They [Scion] have no dealer support in my area, just like the other Asian cars.”
“You should move to America.”
@MikeInNH
Thanks for the invitation, Mike! :neutral:
The problem is that I have always lived in America.
I can make a short trip north, south, east, or west and find dealer support from GM, Ford, and Chrysler car dealers. Don’t blame me for poor product representation by Japanese car manufacturers.
CSA
There are just as many Toyota dealers in my area (NH) as there are any other major manufacturer. I was unaware that they weren’t as readily represented as other makes in other areas of the country (except, I assume, the Detroit area… I would expect GM and Ford to be more heavily represented there).