Extroverted & specialized: Scion's strategy; Scion's vp Jim Farley talks about the seemingly quirky brand that has made some in the industry who were initially shaking their heads in disbelief to look wide-eyed at the sales that are being racked up

Automotive Design & Production, Jan, 2005 by Gary S. Vasilash

"It's a matter of getting the resources," Farley admits. Both Toyota and Lexus are undergoing a raft of new vehicles, so Scion has to work to get its degree of support. "It's tough. You make this kind of experiment and once in a while it's not going to work. We have to look that possibility right in the eye. But it's a bigger risk not to try."

RELATED ARTICLE: FARLEY ON THE COMPETITION

Scion's Jim Farley is convinced that the vehicles that will succeed in the market are those that seem exclusive, or which readily lend themselves to customization so that they will, in fact, become special. He cites three recent vehicles as an example of what he's talking about. "The [Ford] Five Hundred wasn't designed to be speced out. The whole design doesn't ask you, as a consumer, 'Please, customize me.' A [Chrysler] 300 or a [Dodge] Magnum does. Some base designs, especially for brands that want a premium mainstream image, have to have that in their designs."

He admires the Mazda3, He says the five-door version of the Mazda3 is one of the most cross-shopped vehicles with the Scion tC coupe. He speculates of the Mazda3 development, "If you would have been a traditional product planner doing cafeteria product planning, going through the cafeteria, you wouldn't have picked that car. Someone at the company said, 'We can't compete anymore doing that, not as a Corolla competitor. We have to find some unique way of differentiating ourselves because we're Zoom-Zoom.' I think they did a really good job of executing that product."

He thinks that with Nissan's "good following in the urban market," it "is really a natural competitor for Scion." He says that the Hyundai Tiburon is a "great package," and that they, too, "have a very loyal following."

"We will have a lot of competitors because more and more products are going to come out that will look like the xB and tC. But the question we have to ask is: 'Is that enough?' We tried to sell MR2, Celica and Echo under the Toyota badge, and we had a pretty cool marketing program--and it didn't work."

By Gary S. Vasilash, Editor-In Chief