It's Official: The Scion Brand Is Dead
Toyota has announced today that the Scion brand is no more. The Japanese auto giant first launched it in 2003 with the aim of attracting younger buyers in the North American market, and it seemed to have worked - the brand has the youngest average buyer age (36) in the car industry, apparently. Regardless, Toyota has seen fit to kill off Scion.
The tC (below) will die with the brand, ending production in August 2016, while the remaining models - the FR-S, iA and iM - will be sold as Toyotas from the 2017 model year onwards. The incoming Scion C-HR will also be getting a Toyota badge.
The 22-strong team of dedicated Scion employees will all be offered new jobs at Toyota USA, while servicing and repairs for Scion vehicles will continue with Toyota dealerships as normal. Meanwhile, people from the rest of the world are still looking at the top image thinking “what’s that weird badge on the front of that GT86?”
UPDATE: Toyota USA has since confirmed to us that the FR-S model name will still be used after the Scion brand is discontinued.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
I guess we can now safely say…
SCIONara!
U sir, won the internet today.
If this doesn’t make it to the comments of the week, I’m driving a prius for life
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever audibly laughed at a pun before. Congrats.
Honestly I don’t know why they came out with the Scion brand. It Toyota wanted to attract younger buyers just make better cars. No need for rebranding shanannigs. At the end of the day they are all simply part of Toyota and those 22 employees were put in place to understand a specific market segment.
I’d say, more interesting cars, toyotas are good and reliable, something that young people don’t really care about. They are either petrolheads and want an interesting car, or showoffs and need Merc/BMW/Audi preferably the most boring of them all, the Q7/X6/ML etc
Smart move by toyota honestly, I think it was pointless to have the scion branding anyway. It might have worked for the first initial years, but at this point I think everyone would rather have an FR-S with a toyota badge on it!
…or the Subaru. A friend has the Subbie and said he bought that over the Scion because it had more/better options and features.
Finally, the GT86 won’t have that sh*tty logo on it anymore. Now we just need to get rid of Lexus so we can get a Toyota badge on the Altezza.
Why is USDM badging so aweful?
Yeah I think this is actually a move toward the Japanese companies doing it like they do in Japan and just keep everything under the parent brand.
Will north america now have a Toyota 86?
Oh no! This is as tragic as when GM dropped Geo!
#NOICE !!
Is that sarcasm?
Poor geo. I remember racing city buses in one
Or Saturn
Or when Chrysler dropped Eagle, or when GM dropped Geo.
Didn’t notice the badge till I read the part where you pointed it out. 😂
I have a buddy who works at a Toyota dealer where I live, he said that they will keep the FR-S name. So it’ll be Toyota FR-S. Too bad it won’t be called the GT-86 here
$5 on eBay can fix that
I never really liked Scion. The cars aren’t bad, but they felt like they were designed by 40-year-old businessmen based on what they thought “kids” found “cool these days”. 40-year-old businessmen also believe teenage boys refer to men older than them as ‘Daddy-O’.
How about this for “Food for thought”? If Scion is no more, but Toyota will still produce the FT86, will the U.S. be receiving a Toyota GT86!?!?!