"Justin Hughes" (justinhughes54)
02/03/2016 at 13:26 • Filed to: scion
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"Justin Hughes" (justinhughes54)
02/03/2016 at 13:26 • Filed to: scion | 1
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!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! – after 14 years as Toyota’s “youth oriented” brand, Scion will cease to be after the 2016 model year. How did this happen to the brand that had the hip xB and the enthusiast favorite FR-S? I have some theories on that.
Read on Right Foot Down or continue below
The Scion brand came to the US in 2002, and began selling the boxy-but-good xB and the less popular xA the following year (or two, depending on where you lived), followed by the sporty looking tC coupe. In 2007 Scion had the lowest median customer age of any company at 39 years old, but that misses the mark of the “Generation Y” demographic they were aiming for by a mile. A major problem in any plan that tries to market cars to “the youth” is that young people often can’t afford a new car. They may not be driving clunkers, but they may go for a decent used car rather than paying extra for a new one. Daewoo learned this the hard way when they tried selling their new cars to college students, a demographic that is traditionally beyond broke. It’s no wonder that brand only lasted four years in the US.
Scion focused on small economical cars at a time when everyone wanted trucks and SUVs. Though surging gas prices in the mid-2000s may have contributed to the xB’s success as an economical alternative, there’s little point in selling vehicles with small profit margins that people don’t actually want.
No haggle pricing was a good unique way to set themselves apart from those other brands with the typical dealer experience people seem to hate. But it can also hurt at times. The Subaru BRZ is priced slightly higher than the Scion FR-S and includes more standard equipment. However, I actually bought my BRZ for less than an FR-S, which was the main reason I went with the Subaru version instead. (That, and World Rally Blue is awesome.) No haggling can save time and trouble, but it also deprives Scion of the opportunity to match or beat someone else’s price. I would’ve given my local Scion dealer a chance to beat the Subaru’s price if they would’ve let me.
After a bit of success with the xB, Scion redesigned it for 2008 – and got it wrong. Sales plummeted after the first year, and never matched those of the original. The xB lost its boxiness, and with that its uniqueness. It became just another bland bubbly crossover wanna-be in an ocean of similar cars.
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Then again, Scion hasn’t had a clear direction since their original failed youth oriented intentions. They went smaller, not bigger, with the Smart car sized iQ. They replaced the xA with the xD, but both were based on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , so why the name change? The FR-S is the closest thing Scion ever had to a halo car, and it’s very good, but it has virtually nothing to do with the practical, economical hatchbacks that make up the rest of the Scion line.
And then there’s the tC. Before the FR-S, this was Scion’s “sporty” car. This could have been the new Celica. It’s a good looking, sporty, front wheel drive, hatchback coupe, like the Celica before it. Unfortunately, its sporting pretensions only went skin deep on production models. It remained a closer match to the baseline Celica ST than the more sporty GT and GT-S versions. It looks like a sports car but drives like Corolla. Granted, this is exactly what many people want, but by not offering more sporty versions that could actually perform, it lost its credibility as a sporty car. Sure, some people drifted and drag raced tCs, but they were heavily modified and didn’t resemble the version you or I could buy very much at all. The FR-S replaced the tC as Scion’s sporty car, but the tC awkwardly continued on as well, despite not really having a clear purpose.
Scion has done a major about-face over the past year. The unpopular xB and xD are gone. They’ve introduced the iM, which is basically the return of the Toyota Matrix. The thing is, the Matrix was just discontinued in 2013 (2014 in Canada) due to poor sales. What is the point of introducing a “new” car that’s essentially the same thing that failed?
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Even more baffling is the iA, which is nothing more than a rebadged Mazda2 with an ugly nose. I won’t hurt your eyeballs with a picture of that, but I will show you this interior photo – the Scion iA on the left, and the Mazda CX-3 on the right. the only difference is the badge on the steering wheel. Why? What’s the point of Toyota slapping a Scion badge on a Mazda, and doing it on a sedan that isn’t going to sell well? Of course, Toyota has put their name on stranger things – for example, the Chevy Cavalier.
I’ve seen this cycle before in another brand – one that prided themselves on being different than the rest, sold only small economical cars when SUVs were all the rage, offered no haggle pricing, and that floundered to find an identity toward the end. Their name was Saturn. They died in 2009. Oldsmobile also had a bit of an identity crisis just before they shut down in 2004. Scion has been repeating this cycle for the past several years. I’ve frequently called Scion the new Saturn. I’ve been hopeful that they would change their ways, find a direction, and become successful. I’ve often thought that the opportunity was ripe to turn Scion into a performance brand, with the FR-S, a new MR2, a tC worthy of replacing the Celica, and whatever else Toyota wanted to try selling to enthusiasts while leaving the Lexus and Toyota brands alone. Jason Torchinsky had !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! as well. But nobody listened to us, and Scion, as we know it, is now dead.
The FR-S will continue on as a Toyota. I hope they properly rename it the GT86. The inexplicable iA and iM will carry on as well, most likely because they were only just introduced. And the tC will have one last hurrah in a “final release series edition” and end production in August. Will we miss them? Given the current lineup, probably not. Instead I’ll miss what they could have been.
(Photo credits: Scion, InternetAutoguide.com, IFCAR / Wikipedia, Kuha455405 / Wikipedia, and me)
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gin-san - shitpost specialist
> Justin Hughes
02/03/2016 at 13:47 |
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I hope they drop the TC name, give it a complete overhaul and bring it back as the Celica in a couple of years. The second-gen TC is already five years old (although the last refresh was in 2014). Hopefully we'll get a FWD and AWD variant of the Celica - I'm still in the camp that says the 7th gen was alright, even if it didn't hint at the greatness of the All-Trac Turbos of the previous decade.
Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow
> Justin Hughes
02/03/2016 at 13:50 |
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I just want some more S-FR news!
mazda616
> Justin Hughes
02/03/2016 at 13:54 |
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FWIW The iM and iA have actually been selling well, all things considered. Recently, those two accounted for 55 percent of all Scions sold. The iA is a fantastic little car, since it's just a Mazda2 and the new 2 is nice. I wish they had it in hatchback and sedan forms, though. And I wish they'd left the front styling alone.
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Justin Hughes
> mazda616
02/03/2016 at 14:07 |
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The iA and iM seem to be perfectly good cars, aside from the iA’s face, so I’m not surprised. Hatchbacks rule, but I guess they figured that if you want one, you get an iM.
Boxer_4
> mazda616
02/03/2016 at 14:12 |
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I have a feeling that Toyota knew that Scion was going to be terminated within a year when they introduced the iA. They didn’t offer a hatchback because they probably already planned for the iA to become a Toyota. Toyota already has the Yaris hatchback, but have been missing a sedan counterpart since the new generation Yaris was introduced in 2011. The hatchback would have competed with the Yaris anyway, since they would both share showroom floor space.
I almost guarantee the iA will be renamed the Yaris this coming August. In fact, the iA is sold as the Yaris in Canada already.
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Boxer_4
> Justin Hughes
02/03/2016 at 14:59 |
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The tC was basically the ‘00s interpretation of the US market T200 (6th generation) Celica. That Celica was a good car, but never received any of the performance options that the rest of the world did. Where the comparison falls short is the fact that the tC never had a true performance option (not counting the dealer installed TRD Supercharger on the first generation) nor was it sold in the rest of the world, except as the Toyota Zelas in certain countries (second generation only).
You bring up an interesting point about the purpose of the tC with the introduction of the FR-S. The way I see it, it’s similar to the existence of the fourth generation Celica GT-S and the Corolla GT-S at the same time. In both cases, they serve/served slightly different markets, and complimented each other well enough. They did switch market positions, however, with the FR-S taking the upmarket position over the Celica (at least in MSRP).
I think I have a fair comparison of trim levels, but there are probably other opinions on that.
As for the Matrix, wasn’t that mainly a case of an uncompetitive car. The hatchback market seems to be flourishing quite a bit recently, and the iM seems to be a much better package than the second generation Matrix.
(also, iM - Matrix... I’m thinking the iM is going to be renamed the Matrix when it’s brought over to Toyota).