Scion set for comeback
Toyota’s Scion brand is set to make a comeback in late 2027 after 11 years, starting with a right-hand-drive pick-up with two seats, a drop-side bed, three-cylinder engine and a maximum speed of 40kph.
Scion will become a sub-brand to market a new line of experimental models that don’t fit anywhere else in Toyota’s mainstream line-up in the US.
That includes the first Scion in over a decade – the flatbed KEI-01, pictured. It comes in at 3.35 metres long and with four-wheel drive.
It will be shipped to the States as a knockdown kit from Japan, where such small and rugged kei-class trucks are commonplace. It will be assembled in Indiana, creating 50 jobs. The KEI-01 and other Scion models will be retailed nationwide through select Toyota dealers.
Toyota launched the brand in the US in 2002 as an experiment to attract younger buyers with a cache of unusual vehicles, such as the boxy xB, and no-haggle pricing.
Reviving Scion as a niche mobility player is keeping with the original experimental intent of its predecessor, says Simon Humphries, Toyota Motor Corporation’s chief branding officer and head of global design. The sub-brand will target new segments and mobility niches, but won’t be a reboot of the marque that was marketed from 2003-16.
He adds: “One of the big tasks we have as a company in becoming a mobility company is how to provide new answers, and new solutions over and above what we can achieve in the mainstream segment.
“That’s going to need experimentation, a bit of imagination, and maybe we can’t do everything within the rules and regs that we have for the industry. Scion itself, in a lot of ways, is propelling that challenge towards becoming a mobility company going forward.”
The return of Scion will eventually give Toyota five brands in the US – Toyota, Lexus, the forthcoming GR performance and Century.
In addition to the KEI-01, Toyota has previously showed two concepts being considered to join the pick-up under Scion. One, the SxS Concept, is a four-passenger, side-by-side off-roader while the BKE Concept is a small, foldable, stylised two-wheeled electric seated scooter.
