I think we're far enough removed from the death of Scion that we can have a reasonable discussion on it:

Teenagers. i.e. Millennials (at the time)

If scion had stick to the create ((you))re own (((you)))nique car campaign maybe they would have had something stick around longer.

There is zero reason as to why putting factory flame stickers and having options to factory paint wheels different colors would not appeal to boy racers not looking to spend a lot of extra money.

They lost themselves after the first year

The commercials were pretty dumb
youtu.be/hpKi1d6MhLc

It was a fully retarded exercise in futility.

You'd think they would have learned from Honda's fuck-up with the Element, and Pontiac's fuck-up with the Aztec. Both were supposed to super unique, cool cars for a young crowd that liked to go on adventures. Sporty and practical, fun designs.

They just use Toyota guts with different bodies. No different than a Lexus or an Acura/Honda.

They attracted the wrong audience. The legendary Mr. Regular explains it best. youtube.com/watch?v=IqVJKPUVcLw

>What went wrong?
The second gen xB completely ruined their reputation.
Scions were actually cool prior to that. The problem with a brand that relies on being cool in order to sell products is that coolness is fleeting. Once it's gone, it's hard to get back.
The original xB was and is an icon. it was stylish. It was a love it or hate it concept. It was practical, well built, fun, reliable, and infinitely customizable.
But Scion wasn't sure about the radical styling of the first gen car and predicted the much more conventionally styled xA would outsell it. In reality, the OG xB outsold the xA 2 to 1.
So for the second gen car, they asked for opinions of people who bought the original and hated it rather than listening to the people who loved it. They said it was too small, so it moved from the Yaris/Echo platform to the Corolla platform. They complained it was too slow, so out went the 105 HP 1.5L, and in went the oil guzzling 2.4L from the tC. They complained it was too boxy, so they rounded off the edges. They complained it was too low from that factory, so it was given a high driving position.

The second gen xB was panned and hated by the target audience as a result, but old people loved it.
Which destroyed Scion's credibility, and slowly destroyed the brand.

>The legendary Mr. Regular

legendary like syphilis

I just feel these commercials aim at a crowd who don't really care about cars.

Infiniti used to be bad when it started, but now it's ok as it's own brand. But it's at the expense of the Nissan brand in America. Do they sell anything but shitboxes with the Nissan name in America? Also yeah Acura should go.

Toyota wanted Scion to be an attractive youth brand, the problem is no one in that age group (myself included) has barely any expendable income, let alone the financial stability to afford a new car. The first gen xb was a pretty big hit and really the only hit for Scion. The problem was Scion wasn't all that popular even among youths (16-25ish) that could afford new cars. The reality is cars like the 1st & 2nd gen xb were popular with boomers because they were easy to get in and out of, and that trend destroyed Scion's credibility as an edgy youth brand.

Scion really should of used original designs and not rebadged Toyotas, Mazdas, and Subarus for most of the lineup, although the FRS is pretty cool in my book. The "pure price" marketing scheme and warranty friendly aftermarket were awesome ideas on paper.

In a universe where every single person not collecting a pension isn't consistently and perpetually dead broke all the time, Scion might still be around, but the 2008 financial crisis and current state of affairs has ensured anyone in my age group (and I fucking hate the term millennial) will only ever consider the prospect of a buying a new production vehicle a distant dream at best.

He does make proper points in that video, also the Scion AI reviews talks a little bit more about Scionpostmortem youtube.com/watch?v=3WUxP50GRQcz

Scion's main target audience consisted of either people who don't care about cars, or people that do care but could never afford to buy a new one.

You like shark fins on your car?
youtu.be/K1uwRJ1vpyQ

>make edgy sub brand aimed at teenagers right after F&F became a huge success
>make riced out grocery getters for milenials
>fool them for a couple years
>the ones that could afford them wise up
>[years of nothing but sounds of a dying brand]
>finally release the first car actual good idea of a car for the brand, fr-s
>it finally succeeds
>can the brand anyways

It's just an 86, user

Instead of catering to millenials, they should have catered to middle aged men who want to bang millenials.

Also, what's the best car for this?
Asking for a friend.

Who the fuck puts a bodykit on a Hatchback?
youtu.be/NvrgJgvf7tg

sure, but it was still the only car worthy of the idea of the brand
the fucking s chassis accomplished this decades ago but it took toyota a decade themselves to learn what the kids wanted

That pure price shit was fucking stupid. You could get a brz cheaper by like 2-3k over an FRS, and it had a better interior.
Honestly i think 90's kids hated them because their brand screamed safe and sporty. We grew up seeing RWD monsters, RX7, Supra, 350Z F-Body trans am, not fucking FWD econo sporty cars.

Whatever, there's no fucking reason they can't still sell that car under the Toyota badge.

I hate this notion that Toyota has to be the bland, boring patriarch of the Japanese cars.

The FJ Cruiser is fun as fuck and they gave it the axe. BUT they seem to be smartening up, and they've brought out TRD Pro versions for the Taco, Tundra, and 4Runner.

I am really hoping they do something good with the FT-4X concept - there's a void, a need for a spiritual successor to the gap left by the Honda Element/FJ Cruiser.

If Toyota would just shape up and stop with the self-conscious brand checking (i.e. the way Honda won't sell the NSX as a Honda here, they MUST brand it an Acura), they could re-shape their entire brand into something worthy of a broader audience.

For fuck's sake, Ford makes utilitarian vehicles and ridiculously impractical fun vehicles, all under the same brand. Use the TRD badging the way Ford uses SVT - literally no one gives a fuck if you make a dune-jumping 450hp beast truck with FORD on it, they care about the vehicle.

Leave the insecure badgewhoring to faggots who drive BMWs and Mercedes.

marketing cars to kids
>no money
>no chose in car
15-20 year olds (target audience)
can't afford new cars and will take anything they can get which will be second hand or what ever their parents give them.
20-30 year olds want a fast luxury car not some 'hello my fellow kids' Toyota slow box
30-50 year olds are all boomers who want an LS powered tank or a muss-taang

but if a foreign company does something bad, they get punished more for it - like with dieselgate and that one law/edict/whatever that stops us from importing non-usdm cars until they're outdated as shit - meanwhile, a domestic company rolls a can of worms off a mexican assembly line, and people stay with the company because it's american; or the company gets bailed.

but since people who don't care about brands don't care what company they have, companies might as well cater to brand-conscious people (usually it's just to separate luxury from """pleb""" cars) anyways

>30-50
>boomers
Wot

They were trying to sell to people who had no money and no jobs.

And the people whom actually bought were the Demographic on the other end of the age scale.

>They designed and built cars for a specific group that had no intention of ever buying a car...
pretty much this. What fucking teenager can afford a new car. If they can afford a new car why in gaping goatse asshole would they buy a fucking scion.

Boomers are 50+

Your sstereotypes are right, but the age brackets need to be changed.

15-25 (can't afford)
25-35 (don't find it appealing anymore)
35-45 (hello fellow kids)
45-50 (wait a minute, how about you all just fuck off)
50+ (I hate everything I don't completely understand, especially anything younger than me)

"millennials won't buy our cars because of the lame badge, let's make scion"
>only old people buy them
"fuck, kill it before it gets any worse"

>lets appeal to kids by replacing the MR2, Celica, and Supra with a pair of 5 door hatchbacks for the first couple years then the TC
>yeah, this will work