Skip navigation
Newswire

Toyota's Scion pressing to boost production

DETROIT, July 30 (Reuters) - Less than two months after going on sale, the new Scion brand is already asking parent Toyota Motor Corp.'s to raise its production for the U.S. market, a Scion official said on Thursday.

Toyota launched the Scion brand, targeted to young buyers looking for stylish vehicles priced under $16,000, in June with two cars for sale in California only.

Sales of the boxy xB tall wagon, which remind some of a 1970s conversion van, have been nearly triple the company's expectations, and the company is running short on supply, Scion Vice President Jim Farley told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday.

"I was in Japan last week going to the plant asking for more cars," Farley said.

Toyota makes the xB and the xA, a sleek, five-door hatchback, at the Takaoka plant in Japan, he said.

Toyota sold 1,351 Scions in California in June, including about 50 to people from outside California.

"We had one person fly in from Germany. I don't know how they're going to register the car there," Farley said.

The more outlandish xB outsold the xA by a 2-to-1 margin, the opposite of what Scion officials thought would happen, Farley said. "It shocked us," he said.

Scion will expand to the east coast and the southeastern states early next year, and to the remainder of the country in the summer, when it will add a third vehicle to the lineup.

Farley said the third car will be more sporty. He said the car would share some design cues with the Toyota Concept Coupe Crossover (ccX), a multi-purpose two-door car shown at the New York auto show last year.

Scion is also considering adding a hybrid gasoline-electric vehicle to the lineup in a few years, but there are no plans to add a pickup truck, as some industry officials have speculated.

"We want to be really a premium small-car brand. And trucks confuse that," Farley said. "We're going to stay away from trucks."