Nothing was wrong with that assumption...but clearly now with the benefit of hindsight something didn't work out the same way with Scion as it worked out with Lexus.

Lexus was "not accepted" but Lexus has always been a sales success. The two situations really aren't the same, with Lexus they invested a whole lot more and they had a world class car in the LS400. Scion was always sort of a half measure,

 

They are actually the same, and your last statement is what made the difference. You need passion, and then somebody who is willing to throw money behind your passion. The head of Lexus was able to convince corporate of such. the Head of Scion - not quite.

Take the case of Hyundai. They have Luxury cars but someone was unable to convince Hyundai corporate that a new "Genesis" brand is the way to go, and now we have those high end cars carrying the same badge as their low end cars.

 

You don't understand the organizational relationships here. There was no "head of Lexus" there was no "head of Scion". The creation of Lexus was an project 10 years in the making for Toyota, it was an enormous undertaking and they accomplished what they set out to do, build the best car they could and build a brand around that car specifically for its target market...the American luxury consumer.

Nothing even remotely comparable to that went on around Scion. You should do some reading about Lexus as a brand and how it was developed within Toyota.

 

If Lexus was a project, then there was a Chief, A head who was responsible and accountable for its success.

 

Like I said, you should do some reading if it interests you. Lexus was a passion project that came down directly from Eiji Toyoda, one of Toyota's founders and the chairman of Toyota at the time. The goal was to build the world's best car.

You imply some division or such within the company and that wasn't the case. This was a project that was intertwined into the culture of the entire organization, and it was the culmination of what Toyota wanted to do within the US dating as far back as the 1950s but were unable to do.

Like I said, absolutely nothing like Scion.

There are several very good books on the subject.

 

Thanks for confirming what I just said.

 

LOL, whatever you say

 

The passion of Toyoda, and the money that he brings to the passion makes the difference. Who was behind Scion? Nobody. It was the result of a focus group, devoid of a passionate leader.

 

I think they tried it and it didn't go the way they thought. Good, now they can focus strictly on Toyota and Lexus and making sure they don't allow neither one of these names to fall off the cliff.

 

Which is exactly what I said. An entirely different situation and focus for the company.

 

Correct.

However, keep in mind that the goal was the same - to broaden the horizon of Toyota's offering without the o-yawn Toyota name. The difference being who championed the direction. One was championed by a passionate leader with deep pockets, the other by a focus group and run by bean counters.

 

Yes. And bring the FT 1 already

 

Thats just it...that wasn't the goal with the original LS project. The goal was specifically to build the best car they could possibly build for our market, and the rest of is was built around that. The story of Lexus is actually the story of the LS400. Scion wasn't that way.

 

The thing that surprised me about Scion is it never made any business sense IMO. Why pay for a separate name, separate marketing, more people at headquarters to manage the whole affair, etc on your entry level compact cars with average transaction prices of about $20,000.

The profit margins on small cars are already razor thin. Now you're adding in all this redundancy and extra people to manage your small cars as a separate brand, thus gobbling up what little money you were making on those cars to start with.

 

Surely he means Project Genesis