The sun is setting on Scion, Toyota’s youth-oriented division, at the ripe age of 13. Toyota has announced that, starting in August, the iA, iM, FR-S, and the upcoming C-HR crossover will all be sold as Toyotas instead. The tC will be discontinued.

Launched with much fanfare in 2003, Scion was at once a bold experiment and an admission of failure. Scion attempted to shake up the sales model, with no-haggle pricing and only dealer-installed options. The brand was also a tacit admission that, instead of a new generation of buyers, Toyota was an old-person’s brand.
Scion aggressively pursued hipness, sponsoring concerts, giving away a series of music-compilation CDs (back when people used to listen to CDs). The initial lineup consisted of two cars, the xA and the xB?the former a rather forgettable subcompact hatchback while the ultrasquare xB (above) was as trendy and cool as an underground Tokyo nightclub. The tC coupe joined the lineup the following year and became the brand’s bestselling model. Scion had its best year ever, with 173,034 units sold, in 2006. It seemed, however, that the division really didn’t know how to move forward from there.

In 2007, the xA was supplanted by the xD and the xB was redesigned (the new models are seen above at their Chicago auto show debut). Both were substantially bigger and heavier than their predecessors, and they landed in the market with a thud. Even less successful was the iQ, a tiny Smart ForTwo competitor...