The Avensis is the car that the tC is based on. Might as well show pics of a car that uses the same platform.

 

I really like the rear shot. I wonder how the front will turn out. If it's as good as the rear w/ a nice side profile, it'll sell well. Granted that it stays cheap

 

Well, presumably how it does sales-wise will have something to do with how it performs. Although with cars like the Eclipse doing just fine it may only need to provide the image of a sport coupe without actually delivering the performance.

 

M/T says the Avensis was considered, but that the tC will be based on the Caldina. This story says avensis, but has a pic. In any case, I think two door hatchback is a good guess>

http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?article=6642

 

I think if it's really cheap, like in the low $10k range, performance is not a huge issue. Also, if it's light, then it doesn't need too much HP to make it preppy. The Civic EX w/ 127HP is doing just fine. If it's smaller and lighter than the Civic, I think 100HP is sufficient.

 

The xA and xB, both lighter than the Civic, have the 1.5L that puts out 105hp. Its sufficient, but certainly not enough for a sporty coupe. The tC is rumoured to use the 2.4L 160hp found in the Camry or the 1.8L 180hp engine found in the MR2/Celica/Matrix. As a sports coupe, I would think that price-wise it would move up-market, more along the lines of the $17k-18k range to start. But then again it would also be well-equipped. I just don't see Scion having another cheap car (sub 15k) in their line-up.

 

This is the CC article that was linked:

Now that the Scion xA and xB have been on sale in California for nearly six months, in a presentation to the press, Scion vice president Jim Farley reports with rough figures that the xA and xB are actually reaching their target demographic.

Scion, Toyota's recently launched youth brand, is Toyota's attempt to reach out to younger buyers. If successful, the brand intends to boost volume to 100,000 units in 2005 with the addition of a third coupe model, called the tC.

Figures show that the distinctly box-like xB has been outselling the standard hatchback xA, with 65 percent of sales xB and 35 percent xA. The average age for Scion buyers works out to be 35, but the average age for xB buyers is 33 and, surprisingly, 75 percent of xB buyers are men and more than half of them are "ethnic minorities." Since most of the purchases have a cosigner and often the purchaser is the parent of the driver, Farley said that the division has done some research as to how old the average driver actually is, and it's four to five years younger (so 28 or 29 for the xB).

What does this mean? Compared to the Honda Element, originally launched toward young active-lifestyle twentysomethings but really purchased by fortysomethings, the Scions are landing with the right crowd, Farley says. The cars are seing a regionally-staggered introduction beginning with California, but by June 2004, Scions will finally be on sale everywhere in the U.S. We'll have to see if the rest of the country follows California's suit.

Too, the take rate on accessories has been quite high, said Farley, with about 75 percent of buyers adding some type of Scion accessory from the dealership. Most Scion buyers have put $1000 to $1500 up front toward accessories and upgrades, and the figure increases to $2000 over time as the buyers bring their car back in to the dealership for more upgrades.

Getting the word out

Farley said that the division will continue to favor unconventional advertising and will not use celebrity endorsements, instead opting to sponsor leading-edge cultural and music events. Only 33 percent of advertising goes to conventional mass media outlets, while the remainder goes to Scion "taste-maker events." A big portion of the brand's marketing takes after the highly successful, low-key event promotions used by energy drinks like Red Bull and some hip-hop-inspired brands, said Farley.

The dealership sales approach for Scion is following some very unconventional sales methods that frown on good-old-boy sales tactics, so different than standard Toyota dealership decorum that they're finding, curiously, that those inexperienced at selling cars seem to do the best. To illustrate the point, Farley mused that one of the most successful dealerships has "two Asian-American ladies recruited from Nordstrom's."

On the product side, Farley ruled out a hybrid system for any Scion product in the near future, because there aren't enough buyers in the target demographic willing to pay the price premium, though all-wheel drive is something that the division may consider over time.

Farley also fit in a quick outline of the upcoming tC coupe, Scion's third product, which will debut at Detroit and go on sale nearly a year later. Based on the Japan-market Toyota Avensis, he said that the tC would be especially distinctive as the only car on the market with a fully glass roof, an engineering feat to maintain the stiffness of a normal roof. The four-cylinder tC will offer a supercharger kit shortly after launch. Although price-wise it looks like people might cross-shop the tC with the Celica, he asserted that "…the Celica is more of a boy-racer; the tC is more of a 3-Series Coupe. We're not going to be in the same market."

 

 

Thanks for the info. Oh, and welcome to HAN and N&R :thumbup:

 

Hmm, from the comment in the TCC article "…the Celica is more of a boy-racer; the tC is more of a 3-Series Coupe. We're not going to be in the same market" one would think that they're going to make some slow poser thing that they will try and pass off as like, a handling machine.