Scion Wants to Go Premium, Which Is Stupid
For the last decade, Scion has gone after the youth market, and the situation was a good one for both parties. Younger buyers got a more youthful lineup of reasonably priced cars that they could tune and play with, and Toyota got loads of money because of it.
However, for the past few years, Scion hasn’t been raking in the cash like they had been. That has put the decision-makers at Toyota on edge as they look for ways to rejuvenate the brand.
Which doesn’t sound all that bad really, considering the tC desperately needs a new generation, and the FR-S and newly debuted Auris could lead the way. But there’s a problem: The Toyota executives want to turn it into a sub-premium brand instead of the inexpensive youth brand Scion is known for.
This, my friends, is stupid. But it doesn’t come from a misinformed place. When Scion debuted, Toyota wanted to lower its average consumer age, and for a while it did. However, Scion’s lineup became stagnant and that age group shifted back towards old people, with the average age now up to 49-years-old.
If Scion wants a more youthful consumer, they don’t need to go small luxury, but rather back to its youthful origins. They should offer something that’s both cheap for us broke millennials, and fun to drive like the FR-S, which has been a massive hit. We don’t want to buy more Lexus’s, we don’t have the money. We want things like the FR-S and Auris. Maybe even a new MR2?
Toyota, don’t be stupid. Keep to the youth market and build us something good and cheap. The world doesn’t need more luxury Crossovers.