Ditching quirky Scion is the right call for Toyota

Toyota's decision to pull the plug on Scion should come as no surprise. It was at the very least a distraction to busy Toyota dealers and probably a drain on engineering and marketing resources.

Toyota will stop selling five Scion models in August, but rebadge some of them as Toyotas starting with the 2017 model year.

Toyota launched U.S. Scion sales in 2003, positioning the brand as a hip marque to lure young people to Toyota with funky small cars. It started strong but never caught on the way Toyota executives envisioned. Ultimately, it couldn't overcome poor sales in the small-car segments that have been slammed by cheap gasoline.

Scion was always an odd fit. With its own product lineup and marketing effort, it was distinct from the Toyota brand's staid identity. But Scion wasn't a full-fledged brand with stand-alone dealerships.

Toyota wanted Scion to be experimental in terms of both product and marketing. But the brand messaging was uneven and Toyota's support of Scion was inconsistent. While Toyota meant Scion to be a youth magnet, early on its relatively inexpensive lineup attracted almost as many retirees as young people.

Toyota executives insist they learned a lot from Scion. They may have, but the Toyota brand has become such a marketing powerhouse that the automaker doesn't need Scion.

And Scion doesn't bring much help to high-volume Toyota dealerships. Scion sales peaked in the third full year -- 173,034 vehicles in 2006 -- and have since withered to a third of that. Last year, Scion dealers averaged selling just 4.5 vehicles a month, spread across five models.

For all of its offbeat appeal as an underdog and in spreading Toyota's message to new consumers, Scion wasn't carrying its own weight for its parent company. Toyota deserves credit for making a rational business decision.