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Originally posted by: CaMIRO
"The average age figures were, in fact, average age. I believe the footnote is included in the book - feel free to confirm this (I think it was from Automotive News).

I'll take your word for it. I just found it odd, considering that most statistics do use median age.

Performance has moved on since the older Civics were popular.

Agreed, but a base 2004 Civic is really no quicker than a Scion hatch.

Moreover, debadge a Civic, and dress it up, and no one will know.

More importantly, no one will care. Same with the Scions.

The Scions, on the other hand, are billboards for slow progress - and word moves fast among Sport Compacters.

By slow progress, do you mean leisurely acceleration or slow progress towards capturing the Sport Compact crowd?

I agree with your assessment of parental influence, albeit that the buyers themselves have to like the vehicle.

And many do.

Now, the tC is an expensive vehicle for what it offers - horsepower notwithstanding, which is unlikely to impress parents.

This is a statement that I strongly disagree with. For $16,500 it offers more features than an $18,000 Civic EX coupe. Name a sports coupe that comes better equipped for $16,500.

Thirdly, whom Scion "targets" and who they get may be two different audiences. Your statement is like saying that Acura's RL is a success because it targets BMW 5 series buyers.

To what exactly are your referring?

I certainly would not suggest that women don't care about performance. Look at the demographics of the Sport Compact Crowd.

I'd like to see some demographic figures, especially of the people who actually buy the cars. The popularity of the Corolla S and Lancer OZ with young female buyers suggests that a few cosmetic changes are more important than actual performance to that market segment.

Don't forget that what is "cute" today may be abhorrent tomorrow. Scion may intend to change its vehicles frequently, but will that absolve the brand of affiliatory statements?

That's very possible, more particularly with the xA. I don't think the fact that a redesigned car has the same name as an unsuccessful predecessor is important. Young buyers, for example, seem happy with the Hyundai Tiburon, though they may hate the rest of the Hyundai line.

It's far too early to call Scion successful. There's a great article on Scion that was written recently by Jerry Flint; I'll try to find and re-post it.

I'd like to see the article. But I'd say for now we can say that Scion has been successful in netting younger buyers, but it remains to be seen whether they will stick with Toyota, which is the brand's main goal.

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Originally posted by: CaMIRO
"By "slow progress," I mean "leisurely acceleration." To suggest that "no one will care" counters every single lesson of the Sport Compact Crowd.

Where's the power in a similarly priced Civic LX? A few more horses but the Civic has greater mass than either Scion.

I'd be willing to bet that Toyota is burning the midnight oil trying to figure out how to give the xA and xB more power, but NOT make versions that are too visually differentiated - yet cool.

I'm going to guess that the next-gen xB will have the 1.8-liter, possibly even the 180 hp version from the Corolla and Matrix XRS. The xA replacement will probably be very different; it never caught on especially well.

For its price, does the tC offer features that buyers want and need? In other words, why is there no cheaper model?

Why does there have to be? Its price already undercuts almost all sports coupes.

Incidentally, do you have in-gear acceleration times for the xB and the '04 Civic? A minor point, but something I'd like to see.

Sorry, I don't.

You suggested that Scion was "targeting" women, so their emphasis on "cute" (your words) was more important than performance.

I never said that they were targeting only women, but I did remind you that women make up a full half of the market Scion is aiming at.

I countered that this was a circular fallacy - whom  Scion "targets," and who they actually get, are two different things.

So who have they been getting?

Hence the Acura RL example: one cannot say that its strategy is correct simply because it "targets" BMW 5 series buyers.

I'm still not sure where this is coming from.

The PDF has demographics for the Sport Compact Crowd - I believe it was the last chapter.

81% male. I think that proved my point.

Don't forget that minivans, up until recently, were bought overwhelmingly by women (men have recently made up more of the numbers). It was a common understanding among minivan manufacturers that, consequently, spec sheets were very important. Why do you think this is?

I'm going to suggest that it is because they think that good numbers make a good product, and more importantly because it's easier to compare the numbers than it is to actually drive every car.

With the statement, "will that absolve the brand of affiliatory statements," I was not suggesting that a redesigned car should have the same name as an unsuccessful predecessor. Rather, I implied that the Scion name itself is digging itself into public consciousness with a style that may date very quickly.

That's why they're changing their styling on a fairly short cycle. I don't think that an older unsuccessful model could drag down the brand too much.

Have you ever noticed that the end of a decade seems to herald the breath of a new style? Look at tail-fins, for instance - big in 1959, virtually gone by 1960. It's a good example of how trends which are close to each other tend to be very different. I appreciate that Toyota is - for perhaps the first time in its history - taking a huge risk with design; however, it's not really furthering it... merely pushing the boundaries of what is popular.

I'm not sure what this had to do with my points.

As for the Tiburon - it's a great car, but are you implying that the Hyundai name does not hurt it? I could dig up some proof of the opposite, but a quick look at sales figures will suggest that there is something amiss, here.
Incidentally, I mean great. Tiburon's handling is such a cut above every single one of the Scions (for example) that it is not even a contest. Far more immediate responses, albeit with a more crashy ride. Good ride/ handling compromise is hard to find at this price level.

I'm sure its Hyundai name has hurt it a little. But it is a good, attractive, and low-priced sports coupe, so it sells well despite its name.

Scion's average ages are not within those I posted. Moreover, those average ages I used suggest a completely different realm of cars. Median ages are a short-term statistical measure; it is too early to say that Scion has been successful.

The goal of Scion was to attract younger buyers who might stay with the Toyota brand later, so we won't be able to call Scion successful until we have statistics that they stick with Toyota. Until then, we won't be able to call it entirely successful, but we can say that it was successful in attracting younger buyers to the Scion brand, which it has.

It's off to a good (well, decent - as per Flint, who is unimpressed by the sales figures) start, though.

Unimpressed with the sales figures??? The xA has been steadily selling 3K units per month, the xB 5K, and the tC I believe close to 7K.

I'll find that Flint article - or, at least, the pieces of it which I kept. I tend to latch on to paragraphs which I might use later in citations.

I would like to see that.

My take on it has always been obvious, though: canning the MR2 and producing the xB... ugh.

Well, which of the two is selling more? They didn't plan to redesign the MR-2, and keeping an aging model around isn't the best thing to do.

-- Edited by CaMIRO at 22:31, 2004-11-16"

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Originally posted by: CaMIRO
"This is moving in a somewhat circular direction.
De-badge a Civic LX, and modify it visually, and no one knows you're slow. The same cannot be said for a Scion. Word gets out in the Sport Compact Crowd. It doesn't help that boxes are hardly sporty - when did you last see a boxy supercar?In other words, Scions are billboards for slow progress. The tC should have changed things but, having driven it, I don't see it offering what the opinion leaders who drive the Sport Compact segment want. It's heavy, and slow to turn-in; nothing like a Tiburon, for instance.
It may work - it was not out at the time I wrote the PDF. Certainly, though, its dynamics are not what they should be for a car designed to attract youth. A CRX's handling would probably throw it for a loop - and that's a full twenty years old.
The Tiburon should sell better - and it would, were it something other than a Hyundai. BMW sold 3 series Compacts quite well in their early years; they were not as much fun as a Tiburon, despite the rear-wheel-drive.
I'll dig-up in-gear acceleration times for Civic and xB.
Like I said, whom Scion "targets" and who they actually get are two different things. When you ask, "who have they been getting," the onus is upon you to provide this information! I looked at Scion back when it started and concluded that if they continued along that path, it would not work (for the reasons illustrated in the PDF).
Again, who the manufacturer targets and who it gets are two different things. You suggested that Scion had succeeded because it was targeting women. That is like suggesting that the Acura RL has succeeded because it has targeted the 530i - indeed, many on the Car and Driver forums have jumped into this circular fallacy.
You're right about minivans. 6-cylinders are better than 4-cylinders, and the more safety features, the better. The theory was that women were more likely to look at spec sheets.
However, note that the demographics of the Sport Compact Crowd suggest the HIGHEST percentage of women involved in any motorsport or auto enthusiast category. Who do you think is driving this? Does it counter the minivan conclusions? Add to them? Do we know?
The xB is a highly differentiated vehicle, visually, from its peers. Visually, it overshadows the tC. The tC could be confused with other cars; no one's going to confuse an xB with anything else (except with the equally-boxy Element). Thus, should it fail, it has more impact on the Scion brand; it, among all the Scions, is the Scion that is most in public consciousness.
My point about the end of the decade is that fashions in design suddenly fade - particularly when they are strong, like Cadillac's tail-fins were - and, like the xB's boxiness. That, and the car's visibility as a Scion, makes it a liability.

Well, your central point appears to be (I apologize for simplifying here) that the most visible Scion, the xB, is doomed becuase it is slow and noticeable. Yet it is selling fairly well, and I don't see a reason for it to do otherwise. You suggest that boxy cars will be going out of style; I am willing to believe that they are just coming into style.

Automotive style has gone back and forth between curvey and boxy since the first automobiles. The most recent high point of the boxy cars was the 1980's, and the recent high point of curvy cars was the 1996-1999 Taurus/Sable. Since then, cars have been moving to more and more square looks, and are still far from the high-watermark of boxy.

Flint was unimpressed with the sales figures, suggesting that Toyota - in its lower models - has lost the same amount that Scion has gained. I'll have to find that damn article.

That's simply inaccurate. The Echo was selling about 3,500 units per month. The two Echo-based Scions sell twice that. And I don't think the Corolla's sales have suffered either.

Incidentally, the Scion strategy can be called into question when one considers how awful the Echo was. I realize you don't agree, but the market evidently does. Echo was the first Scion, part of a strategy dubbed Genesis. Toyota went to Scion when Genesis failed.

The Scions corrected the Echo's biggest flaw: no features for the base price. Either Scion is much better equipped than even a fully loaded Echo, and for much less?

When was the last time you saw an advertisement for the MR2? It is so much better (and better-engineered) a car than ANY Scion that it hurts. Yet Toyota has chosen to can it.

True. But clearly the market doesn't respond to better engineering. The MR-2's biggest competitor, the Miata, has a decent-size trunk, while the MR-2 has almost literally no cargo space. That may be its biggest failing.

BTW, MR2 is hardly "aging." The Scions are based on older components than is the MR2, which is a highly-individual vehicle in Toyota's line-up and as such shares little with the rest.

That's true. But the MR-2 is significantly older to the American market, and I don't mean in its mechanicals.

I see Scion as the product of a short-term strategy with relatively low investment and low risk to Toyota (if higher to itself). Nothing in its line-up suggests to me that anyone has bothered to actually study the market - rather, they've picked up on the peripheral things.

Then why is it selling so well to young people?

I'd genuinely like to hear your reasoning to the contrary. -- Edited by CaMIRO at 11:10, 2004-11-17"

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Originally posted by: CaMIRO
"ifcar, I was working on a response to this but it will have to wait; must run. I've added to the Civic thread, though...
I agree with your assessment of the MR2, but the story could have been different. Sometimes I wonder whether Toyota can sell an enthusiastic car - does it know how?-- Edited by CaMIRO at 02:08, 2004-11-18"

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