Scion recently introduced several new compact cars in its lineup to try to breathe life into it. They are called Scion iA and iM compacts, and both of them are the company’s latest attempts to regain entry-level market share. Recently, Scions models are becoming more and more old and outdated. So the brand clearly showed a need for some resuscitation.
Some effort was obviously seen with the latest Scion adaptation of the Toyota GT-86 sports coupe. This is one of Toyota’s latest attempts to restore sporting performance to a portfolio that would otherwise be no more interesting than the Cuisinart device. But the impractical compact sports coupe is not for everyone, and it is definitely not the machine in which Skion must feed his pockets.
Even more complicated is the fact that Scion is extremely financially constrained. So they had to buy the rights to redesign the newest Mazda2 as a Scion iM, while iA is the European and Asian Corolla Auris, slightly revised for the US market.
-Jack Wilson
