No Youth for You: Toyota Closing Shop on Scion
In a move that doesn’t come as a surprise to many, Toyota is shutting down Scion, its youth-oriented offshoot experiment that began in 2003. The move comes in the wake of declining sales and some market redundancy on the part of Toyota, who have been doing a pretty good job of catering to the youth market on their own.
But don’t worry, this is actually good news.
“This isn’t a step backward for Scion; it’s a leap forward for Toyota. Scion has allowed us to fast track ideas that would have been challenging to test through the Toyota network,” said Jim Lentz, founding vice president of Scion and now CEO, Toyota Motor North America, in a Toyota press release.
That may be the viewpoint of Lentz and the 22 full-time Scion execs who will be asked to transition into the Toyota fold. But that may not be the opinion of the folks working at the 1004 Scion dealerships currently operating. Though Lentz did say the dealerships would be supported during this “time of transition.”
For maintenance and upkeep, current Scion owners will continue to take their cars into Toyota dealerships’ service departments.
As for the current Scion lineup, three models will be absorbed into the Lexus — the sporty FR-S, and the brand’s two most recent additions, the iM and iA. The tC will get axed after 2016, but will receive one last commemorative edition. And Toyota also plans on bringing to market the newly announced C-HR small crossover, a smaller RAV 4 that was shown off as a concept in L.A. recently.
As far as an impact on Lexus goes, we don’t really expect much. But if we’re dreaming, that FR-S (shown above) could be a really fun car with a little bit more power. Heck, it might look pretty good with a big L on a spindle grill and packed with a growling 5.0L V8. Not that there’s any possibility of that happening.
With just 56,167 Scions sold last year, less than the number of Toyota Avalons, the writing may have been on the wall. So after 13 years, let’s all pour one out for the little youth brand that never really grew up.
