It's Official: The Scion Brand Is Dead

It's been announced that Scion is no more, as the brand's vehicles will be badged as Toyotas from the 2017 model year onwards

Matt Robinson

03 Feb 2016

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 almost had a heart attack when i saw the FR-S and the word “dead” together

You know even if FR-S would be dead is there still GT86 and BRZ😂

Say what you will, but I will always enjoy my tc1. It’s not perfect, but damn it’s reliable and had a ton of standard features. I’d buy another one in a heartbeat.

I loved my first gen xB. Had no problems with the car over a 10 year period. Literally only had to do maintenance and change the tires and battery. Slow as hell, but the thing was a tank… I mean toaster.

I’m thinking about a tC as a daily, and have heard nothing but good comments about them. They’re fun to drive, too!

Once Scion is axed, maybe Toyota will finally call the tC the Celica? Or the iM the Matrix? But for sure, Toyota will call the iA the Yaris Sedan (as they already do in Canada) and, of course, the FR-S will be called the GT86.

Yeah I currently own a first Gen tc, it has been awesome, sad to see they discontinued the model.

But why kill a brand that’s been doing well so far?

It actually hadn’t been doing that well, Scion sales have been consistently going down for the last few years and Toyota dealers in the US and Canada were given the option recently of not selling the Scion brand if they didn’t want to.