Toyota announced earlier this year that its marque Scion, which was built keeping young customers in mind will now cease to exist. Scion’s demise was announced in February, after the final release series of the compact coupe - tC scheduled to conclude the production in August 2016. Yesterday, the brand announced it is going to meet its maker on their official Facebook page.
Instituted in 2003, Scion was Toyota’s sub-brand focused on the younger generation who found Toyota brand to be old-fashioned. Therefore the name, Scion, is a synonym of the descendant of a family or heir, which incidentally referred both to the brand's cars and their owners. In its 13 years of service, the brand managed to sell around 1,092,675 units, and according to reports, 70 per cent of which were new customers to Toyota, and half of the customers were under 35 years of age.
The existing line-up of the brand will be badged under Toyota USA. The FR-S which was actually a rebadged 86 will soldier on with its original name, the iA will now be Yaris iA, whereas the iM will be called the Corolla iM. The tC is already done for, as for the C-HR concept which was showcased at the 2015 Los Angeles Auto Show will also be a part of the Toyota line-up. For now, reassuring the existing customers of the deceased brand, the Japanese automaker said that servicing and repairs for Scion vehicles will now be looked after by Toyota’s service departments.
The message left by the brand on their final entry was – “Today, after 13 years and nearly 1.2 million owners, Scion closes its doors. Some of our models will continue to live on with the Toyota USA brand, and we would like to thank you for sharing the ride with us. Whichever road you choose to take, we hope it leads to a bright future."
“It’s been a great run and I’m proud that the spirit of Scion will live on through the knowledge and products soon to be available through the Toyota network,” said Andrew Gilleland, former vice president of Scion.
“This isn’t a step backwards 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,” explained Jim Lentz, founding vice president of Scion and now chief executive officer of Toyota Motor North America.
