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!
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.
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!
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.
Will north america now have a Toyota 86?
Oh no! This is as tragic as 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
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!?!?!