Breaking: Scion Brand Gets Axed By Toyota After 13 Years

Scion is going away as the youth-oriented brand of Toyota Motor Company. For cars like the Scion FR-S, Scion iA and iM, this will be their last year with the Scion badge.

CarBuzzard broke the news first and said the Scion brand will be dropped by Toyota. The report says Scion employees were given the announcement yesterday. The news was announced in a private meeting. The official announcement by Toyota took place at 9:00 am this morning.

What happens to Scion vehicles?

Toyota says in the announcement made this morning, beginning in August 2016, MY17 Scion vehicles will be rebadged as Toyotas. The FR-S sports car, iA sedan and iM 5-door hatchback will become part of the Toyota family. The niche market of youth-oriented vehicles is seeing less sales each year and Toyota decided to pull the plug on the brand and transition the cars into the Toyota lineup. Apparently employees can reapply with Toyota Motor Company and will have to relocate if they want to stay on in other jobs with the Japanese automaker.

Scion FR-S Release Series 2.0

Scion recently came out with a strange ad for the 2016 Scion FR-S Release Series 2.0 that we reported on here. Only 1000 examples of the special edition model were released in the U.S. back in October and sales had been slow for the model. The brand has been struggling, and with the launch of the iA and iM models, it appeared Toyota had a plan to turn the Scion brand around. It wasn’t enough as Toyota pulls the plug on the Scion brand.

What will happen to Subaru BRZ?

What will this mean for the Subaru BRZ which was co-developed by Toyota and Subaru? We don’t know yet what Subaru will do, as sales of the sports coupe has also been dropping. The BRZ sports coupe saw an uptick in sales last month for the first time in months. We’ve been talking about essential improvements being needed on both FR-S and BRZ.

Subaru knew the BRZ would never be a high-volume model. The BRZ/FR-S was due for a refresh. To create new excitement for the sports coupe around the globe, Subaru and Toyota needed to upgrade the current models with enhanced performance. We reported that Subaru would build the next-generation model with new upgrades by STI, and with this decision by Toyota, the BRZ and FR-S will likely get another chance. Stay tuned.

Sources: CarBuzzard Toyota