If American carmakers have lost the youth plot, Toyota's Scion strategy is making all the right moves. Conor Twomey reports from the US
As the US car giants desperately try to stop the financial haemorrhaging at their brands, Toyota just doesn't seem capable of putting a foot wrong.
The story of its American success with main brand models and its Lexus marque is well known. Yet for all the admiration of its production processes and management style, one element of the tale that has contributed to the success of late has been the ability to keep its ear to the ground.
Toyota bosses in the US have been studying the youth segment closely and thinks it knows what the next generation of US buyers wants. It calls its new youth brand Scion and, although it isn't grabbing the headlines as Lexus did when it arrived in 1989, it's doing a lot more damage to US brands than many realise.
By the late-1980s, wealthy Americans were ready for change. Tired of elitist, over-priced European luxury brands and shoddy domestic barges, they flocked to the ultra-reliable and opulent Lexus LS400. Rivals immediately tried to copy the idea but none hit the mark as squarely as Toyota.
In a few years, rivals will again be slapping their foreheads and wondering why they didn't think of Scion first. For now, though, they're not too bothered.
Most car firms assume that young buyers are fickle and have no brand loyalty - understandable given that many who buy an entry-level new car rarely return to the brand.
This may not be the buyers' fault, considering the "compacts" they're being sold. The Chevy Cavalier and Dodge Neon are based on decade-old architecture and it's clear that investment in both cars has been minimal. The new Ford Focus isn't coming to the US because it's too expensive to build - instead the current car will battle on until 2008.
But there's a brand-new Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla every four years, ensuring a continuous supply of new and repeat buyers. The result is Honda Accord and Toyota Camry jockeying for title of America's best selling car every year.
Toyota wants to be the world's biggest carmaker and Scion is a big piece of that plan. The first toe the company dipped into America's youth market, the Yaris-based Echo, got badly stubbed. The Echo was cheap but it was also ugly and miserable to drive.
Lesson learned, Toyota delved into its mind-boggling range of 50-odd Japanese products and plucked out what it thought the American youth would find cool: the xA and the xB (aka the Toyota "ist" and Toyota bB). The xA looks like a Yaris that has spent time in the gym and drives pretty well thanks to its Yaris T-Sport engine and underpinnings.
The xB, a much more arresting product, is unapologetically boxy and in-your-face - and it's already a surprise hit with the audiophile set in America. Both cars are the work of a Japanese design team wired directly into the psyche of its local youth, who for years have emulated American culture but are now influencing US car buyers with their daring innovation.
Drifting, modifying and tuning are long-established pastimes of oriental youth and now trend-conscious Americans are discovering it all for themselves.
The Pokemon generation is due its first set of wheels and Toyota is ready. Advertising is subtle, with mainstream ads kept to a minimum. Instead, Scion has its own magazine, advertises on websites and underground magazines and supports internet forums.
Local dealers must follow strict guidelines on how they advertise. As a result, most people have no idea what a Scion is or what these small cars are about. But its core market knows exactly what's going on and that's all that matters.
The all-new tC is the brand's crunch model. Unique to Scion, it's designed with the street-racer in mind and its success will dictate whether or not Scion has a future. It essentially kills off the Celica (online speculation claims that tC stands for Toyota Celica) and is based on the European Avensis platform, which makes it much bigger than it seems in pictures.
The tC is handsome, with the right attitude for a wannabe sport car. The cockpit is snug, comfortable and extraordinarily well built. More importantly, the low driving position, chunky steering wheel and reasonably sporty seats give the right vibes.
The tC is powered by the Camry's 160-bhp 2.4-litre engine which offers reasonably quick, if coarse, performance. However, what truly impresses is the standard equipment: 17" alloys, twin sunroofs, leather steering wheel, cruise control, air-con, metallic paint and a decent Pioneer stereo. The price? Try $17,000, or around €14,000, including delivery. That's Lexus equipment and warm, if not quite hot-hatch, performance for Yaris money. Needless to say, there's an unruly queue of buyers.
But what really has the 2Fast 2Furious crowd in a frenzy is the bewildering array of brand-name aftermarket parts which Scion customers can choose from at the time of purchase. Not just the usual floor mats or spoilers, but alloy wheels as big as 19" from any maker they want, sound systems including DVD players and massive subwoofers and performance packages which can include superchargers and lowered, stiffened suspensions.
The Scion range has been developed with these parts in mind, so the cars won't break when they're modified. So, your warranty isn't voided as long as a Scion dealer does the work.
Dealers won't make much from the cars themselves, but they clean up from the aftermarket work. Toyota makes money because it doesn't discount car prices (an otherwise common US practice) - it charges for the finance and takes a commission for the aftermarket parts.
Scion customers are happy because they can "trick-out" their cars before they even pick them up and they can lump modifications costs into the finance package. One dealer said most tCs are leaving with $3,000 to $4,000 worth of extras per car.
With Scion, Toyota is bringing tuning to the American masses, making it simple, affordable and mainstream. It won't have much impact on hardcore tuners who aren't happy until their cars are tweaked to within a micron of catastrophic engine failure. But, for those on the fringe who want to buy into the street-racer image without risking their investment, Scion is perfect.