Scion Officially Waves Goodbye With Eye-Watering Message

As of October 25th, the Scion car maker has officially ceased to exist.

Toyota originally announced Scion’s demise in February, along with a tC final release series edition scheduled to end production in August 2016. The brand, however, soldered on a few more months before officially closing its doors.

Established as a separate brand in 2003, Scion was described as a “laboratory created explore new products and processes to attract youth customers”. In other words, the brand was aimed at young Gen-X buyers who weren’t necessarily interested in cars, and who viewed Toyota a bit too old-fashioned.

In 13 years, Scion managed to sell more than a million vehicles, 70 percent of which were purchased by new customers to Toyota, and 50 percent were bought by individuals under 35 years old.

Now, Toyota say that those buyers have come to appreciate “the Toyota brand and its traditional attributes of quality, dependability and reliability”, and it’s time that Scion merged with its maker, but the brand itself succumbed to a combination of factors, including the Great Recession, a series of recalls, and even Toyota’s own initiative of reinventing itself for a younger clientele – making the existence of Scion redundant.

As of August, MY17 Scion vehicles are rebadged as Toyotas, including the FR-S, iA sedan and iM hatchback.