Some may or not have been surprised by the death of Scion, Toyota’s intended “youthful and hip” sub-brand designed to attract younger buyers. But some question arose as to what Toyota would do with the newly introduced iA and iM cars to the North American market. At this point, you probably thought too similarly to how I did, does anyone care?
For those who surprisingly do, the Scion iM, which is basically a Euro-spec Corolla/Auris hatchback rebadged and slightly reworked for our markets while the Scion iA is just a rebadged and slightly reworked Mazda2 sedan.
Both were just introduced to the US market last year, so for those really wondering, while the vast majority of the car-buying public do not, how would those models continue selling in the US without the Scion outlet and brand being around?
The answer: they’re going to be sold as Toyotas.
AutoBlog supposedly got wind of these details through Scion’s spokeswoman, Nancy Hubbell, who said both the iA and iM are on sale in the US and Canada already. It would be a poor choice to stop selling the models altogether since it would make their potential efforts a total waste for Toyota, and they’re already trying to cut their losses wherever they can by cutting the Scion brand.
Because of this, as you guessed, for the first time in the US-spec Corolla’s history, the Corolla will be offered in two body styles as the iM hatchback will be renamed as a Corolla. However, there was no information available as to what will happen to the Mazda2-based iA.
Nonetheless, this renaming and rebranding plan for the Scion iA and iM matches with Toyota’s decision to rename the Scion FR-S as the Toyota 86 here in America, which is what the FR-S should’ve been called since day one.
– By: Chris Chin
Source: Autoblog.com
Source: egmCarTech http://bit.ly/1pvtF51
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