One Reason Why Scion Failed as a Brand

"Ballasted" (ballasted) 02/26/2017 at 15:27 • Filed to: scion, brap, car sales, butts

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A conversation with some local friends sparked a synapse in my brain to recollect a comment I dropped on another post back in 2013. A complaint raised during this conversation was that a couple different people had extremely poor browsing/sales experiences at Scion dealerships.

Since this story is still buried in the drab grey commentariat on another post, I decided to resurrect it for the entertainment of oppo.

Original post:

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Today, we see how well that ambition worked for Scion. Great success!

Cherrypicked from the post:

“But here in the States, not so much. The entire Scion brand, FR-S included, has been clocking in less-than-stellar sales numbers month over month. My guess is that everyone who wanted an FR-S has bought one.”

And my re butt al:

This statement I believe, but I don’t think the reason is necessarily what you state. I own a ‘91 miata and an ‘03 Corolla. I was at Atlanta Toyota having an airbag recall (yikes!) fixed on the Corolla, and while I was waiting to pick my car up I wandered out to the showroom to check out the FR-S on the floor, thinking to trade in the Corolla. First I walked around the car several times to admire the design styling, since it didn’t resonate with the hipster box-on-wheels or cutesy Yaris clone designs already vomited up at the purchasing public.

Having run a half-marathon around the display car without so much as a second glance from any of the exceedinly busy sales staff, I thought to have a look at the interior and maybe sit inside it. Ordinarily, this would probably be a reasonable avenue of thought at any car dealer’s showroom. But not here. After a light pull on the door handle didn’t open the door, I made the attempt again with all the cyclopean strength my 158lb frame could muster, yanking the handle with enough force to dislodge Excalibur from Sarah Palin’s puckered rectum.

The door didn’t open. The alarm, however, went off with a colossal racket, causing the entire population of the showroom to turn and look in my direction. Across the room, someone raised their hand, brandishing a remote entry fob.

Blip! Clunk. The alarm was disarmed and the doors unlocked. As I reached for the handle again, excited to plop my skinny ass into the driver’s seat, the doors clunked again and a taunting “Blip!” emanated from the car again. A tentative pull on the handle revealed the FR-S had once again been locked and armed. I leveled my murderous gaze at the bearer of the key fob, who continued to ignore me with unrivaled prejudice.

My stomach gurgled angrily. At least, I like to think that it felt the same fury I did, and rose to the occasion in a glorious act of rebellion.

I had to fart.

Incensed at the treatment I had thus far received, and feeling unusually immature about the whole situation, I casually sauntered to the rear quarter panel of the car, carefully placed my buttocks against it, and let loose the winds of righteous indignation against that unsuspecting FR-S. The flatulence reverberated with startling clarity against the sheet metal, echoing around the showroom which was still mostly silenced by the earlier cries of the alarm.

Once again, everyone stopped and turned to look at me. I raised my chin defiantly, patted the stale fumes out of the ass of my designer jeans, and strode back into the service waiting area, victorious, but lacking an FR-S.

(Heh, heh. Re butt al.)

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is an author on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! because !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!   !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , maintains a healthy if somewhat obsessive automotive passion, is owned by a single black cat, has never driven a Volkswagen Touareg, and probably never will. (Oh, and he’s fond of parentheticals.)

For Sweden > Ballasted 02/26/2017 at 15:34

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Also they built Toyotas

PS9 > Ballasted 02/26/2017 at 15:39

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Scion died because it marketed to people who couldn’t afford to buy cars new.

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > Ballasted 02/26/2017 at 15:40

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A four door shooting brake is called a wagon.

Ballasted > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 02/26/2017 at 15:54

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I didn’t write the original post about the shooting wagon brake.

Dave the car guy , still here > Ballasted 02/26/2017 at 15:54

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I stopped in to look at a TC in Virginia Beach in about 2005 or 06 . I was driving a new VW Passat that was a loaner car from VW. The salesmen didn’t even come out to see me in the lot. It was summer and hot. I was somewhat interested in buying one. I walked inside and was snubbed likely because of summer surfer type clothes. Grabbed a brochure and left without ever talking to anyone. I can see why they failed.

carcrasher88 > Ballasted 02/26/2017 at 16:27

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I personally believe another reason the Scion brand failed is because Toyota didn’t give Scion standalone dealerships.

If you look at other brands owned by major automakers and see who allows such separation:

- BMW doesn’t sell Minis in their showrooms, and the only time you’ll see Mini and BMW on the same dealer lot is if Mini is given their own separate showroom.

- Lexus and Toyota aren’t sold in the same showroom. In fact, nearly all Lexus dealers are standalone dealers that include many that are actually located at various distances away from Toyota dealers. Heck, even in their home market of Japan, the Lexus brand gets their own locations, though usually located somewhat close to Toyota dealers.

- Infiniti, another Japanese luxury brand, is pretty much NEVER seen on the same lot as Nissan.

- Same case as Acura.

- Hyundai, on the other hand, is apparently gonna go both ways with their new Genesis brand. Some established Hyundai dealers will continue to sell them, others will give Genesis standalone locations.

- Fiat is in a similar situation. There are some standalone Fiat dealers, some of which are gaining Alfa Romeo, and there are some that have Fiat integrated into a Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram lineup.

- smart established itself here mainly because their showrooms were separate from M-B, since Penske owned the franchise rights in their early years here. Now that said franchising doesn’t exist, smart has been slowly integrated into M-B dealerships.

But, there are obvious examples of failures of brands that were sold separate from their corporate owner’s other brands, Saturn being the most obvious one.

Scion could have better diversified their lineup better, too.

During their time, Toyota’s Japanese lineup had a lot of models that could have been easily made into Scion models that were different than existing Toyota models. Even some European models, too.

Imagine a Scion version of the Toyota Avensis wagon. Or the Toyota Aygo city car. Maybe the Estima minivan? Or the Sienta MPV?

TheBlacktopExperiment > Ballasted 02/26/2017 at 17:00

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I think it has most to do with the cars themselves. Their designs are very ‘technical’, cold, and square. Sort of like an xbox on wheels. I never liked the way they looked, they were often underpowered and I can imagine cheap, and I would rather buy a sharper, more expensive car used than a cheap car new. I always thought of it as a kiddie version of a Toyota- a “Toyota spawn” of sorts. And Toyota is bland and cheap enough as it is.

gmctavish needs more space > PS9 02/26/2017 at 19:35

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And it didn’t even do a good job of marketing at them, it was like watching your weird uncle trying to use facebook for the first time.

ranwhenparked > Ballasted 02/26/2017 at 20:24

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I would say the Scion brand failed because it had such an artificial focus. It wasn’t based on price ranges or vehicle type or positioning, it was based on the rather loosely defined idea of appealing to first-time buyers with affordable cars (which is exactly what the Toyota brand’s own lower end models were also doing). The only reason it was created as a separate brand is because Toyota North America execs felt that the Toyota brand itself was perceived by young people as being too “stogy”, so, rather then fix that problem and risk alienating existing buyers, they created a whole new brand.

They made a lot of product planning mistakes, too. The original xB was their top seller and accounted for the majority of Scion’s sales. However, rather than replace it with the next generation version of the same car (the Toyota bB), it was replaced with the larger and softer Toyota Corolla Rumion, which was missing too many of the quirky details that made buyers like the first xB. Sales plummeted and never recovered.

Scion also just plain never got the kind of cars that people actually buy. The iQ (a small, 3-passenger city car of marginal utility and interest to American buyers); the FR-S (a RWD sports coupe with a limited enthusiast appeal); and the tC (a FWD sort of sporty coupe, a once-popular genre that all other automakers abandoned in the 1990s and 2000s due to diminishing consumer interest), plus the 2nd gen Xb that was a total flop in comparison to the successful 1st generation.

They never got a crossover vehicle and only got “conventional” subcompact and compact cars in the final few years, Scion simply never had the product to really make it a high volume brand.

Part of that was a fear that growing Scion too much with mainstream product would steal sales from Toyota, which further shows the pointlessness of the brand. There was nothing Scion could do that Toyota wasn’t basically already doing with its own lower-end products.