The Scion FR-S Won’t Be Rebadged As The Toyota GT86

The Scion brand launched in 2002 targeting younger auto buyers that Toyota was finding to be a hard target audience.

Toyota says it achieved what it had hoped with the Scion, including attracting younger buyers.

Toyota’s Scion sub-brand is no more, as the Japanese automaker announced earlier this week that the brand will be folded, and that the brand’s existing cars will be rebadged as Toyota vehicles going forward.

Toyota wasn’t being specific and this has got some analysts suggesting that it is actually due to Scion’s poor sales record. The tC sports coupe will have a final release series edition and end production in August 2016.

“Youth buyers are in a completely different position than they were 13 years ago”, Bob Carter, senior VP-operations for Toyota Motor Sales told Automotive News, an Ad Age sibling publication.

Toyota says that both the service and fix process for Scion customers will remain unaffected by this transition, and that customers may continue visiting Toyota dealerships for service and maintenance. Sales of all models combined peaked at just over 173,000 in 2006.

The branding switch will occur when the 2017 models reach dealer showrooms in August.

Toyota’s decision will have minimal impact on dealers and owners. The company said 27% of its 2015 Toyota vehicle sales were to young people in that demographic. “Dropping the Scion brand will enable Toyota to cut the marketing and support costs for a weak third brand and better deploy those resources throughout the company”. Toyota built its reputation by offering thoughtfully designed, safe and reliable products, but that’s come along with a sheen of dullness, something that CEO Akio Toyoda, has been vocal about wanting to change.

For Toyota, doing away with the millennial-geared brand might work to its advantage.

Toyota says that Scion has consistently been the youngest brand in the auto industry with an average age of 36 years old.

Other observers said the end of Scion was similar to that of GM’s subsidiary Saturn – though Scion never had dedicated, stand-alone dealerships, as Saturn did.

Sullivan sees the potential for a sales increase with Scion models, but cautions, “We don’t know what their pricing or trim levels will look like… they could make them more expensive and they may not be as good a value proposition as they are today”. That’s what’s happening to Toyota’s Scion brand right now.

Wall said she’s “devastated” that Scion will no longer be a separate brand.