BOX on Wheels !!!! - PT Forums - The PT Cruiser Enthusiasts and Owners Resource

Marc · #1 (**permalink**) 3rd April 2003, 09:26 AM

Ok, I don't get it with these Japaneese companies.
I don't understand how anyone can love anything like the "Boxy' Cars they are designing these days..
First, the Honda Element, now the Toyota Scion ????
If it's one thing I cannot stand on cars is the SQUARE look. To me, that means that the designers are just too damn lazy to come up with curves so they leave it SQUARE.
Take a look at this monster:
And I thought that the Volvo was too square.....
The Toyota Scion.

Toyota readily admits it's taking a gamble by creating a new youth brand, called Scion. But it also says it's one of few companies that can afford to chance inventing an entirely new division. True enough, and a lot of folks laughed at Lexus, too.

So what is Scion?

A division that will shoot straight at 18 to 26-year-olds (what Toyota calls the Net Generation) and a brand that will, at first, take its inspiration from extant Japan-only products like the Bb (shown here and renamed the bbX for Americans).

Interestingly, Toyota says the Net Generation will be about the size of the Baby Boom generation, and its goal is to integrate these buyers into the Toyota fold, since the fear is that if its parents and grandparents drive Toyotas, the brand will later suffer the way Cadillac and Oldsmobile have of late.

The first Scion will look a lot like the funky bbX and debut in June of 2003, but it will initially only be sold in California. Then in early 2004, there will be nationwide Scion sales with three models total and a goal of 100,000 unit sales that year. Prices of all Scions will be below $18,000.

As for the bbX, very few details were offered, but it's expected that the deal struck with Pioneer (nyse: PIO - news - people ) to provide high-powered digital audio sound is the one thing this generation of buyers will find attractive. The bbX show car gets a DVD/CD player, for example, and a thumping 1350-watt audio head unit with six speakers and a subwoofer. Rock on, kids.