Toyota has become used to being successful in almost everything it does, so it must have come as a shock when the carmaker’s youth brand, Scion, suffered from falling sales for 16 straight months. Even though dealers have had two updated models to sell during the period, monthly sales have fallen each month, and the brand’s recent struggle comes as a surprise considering the great success of the first-generation of Scion cars.

The falling popularity has been attributed to a weak car market and Scion’s marketing strategy which requires ‘momentum’ to be successful. Toyota has also acknowledged that the model changeover was a factor in slowing down the momentum behind Scion due to the lengthy time period they took to get the xB and xD into showrooms. “We underestimated the loss of momentum from the dark period for those two vehicles,” said Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, during a recent interview with AutoWeek. “The way Scion is marketed, it takes longer to get traction.” Ever since the changeover of two of the three Scion models, the xB and the xD, sales fell almost 25% in 2007.

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