The Regular Car Review on the Scion iA made all the usual conclusions. Scion is dead because millenials have no money, it’s underpowered, the tacked-on nose looks funny, yadda yadda. Worst of all, though, Mr. Regular must cope with the idea that Toyota may no longer make its own small car for the United States in the near future. And that’s hard.
One of Mr. Regular’s first hilariously wacky videos was about his own Toyota Echo, the small Toyota economy car he owned when he first started the series. It was a profane, angry, belch-filled review that endeared him to the internet forever. He loved that Echo.
The Echo was followed in Toyota’s lineup by the Yaris, which may disappear from the United States, if the rumors are correct. With the death of Scion, Toyota will start rebadging the iA—itself a rebadged Mazda—as a Toyota. Hardest of all for Mr. Regular, it could mean the end of Toyota’s own small cars in America. This, after all, is a Mazda with a tacked-on nose, and don’t you forget it.
The Yaris will live on in international markets—after all, it’s the basis for their amazing looking 2017 World Rally Championship car—but possibly not here. Mr. Regular says it’s a mistake, comparing the small car-as-afterthought line of thinking to the perennial dumpster fire known as Chrysler.
I get it. There’s a real feeling of loss when our favorite cars roll out of production. It’s almost like losing a friend. I feel the same way every time I hear rumblings that Mitsubishi won’t design a new Lancer. It’s a great car! I love mine! If they replace it with some half-baked turdpile from Renault, it won’t be the same.
Then, of course, you have all the doubts: will the company survive without its own small car? Will they continue to support my car, such that I can replace broken parts and consumables? How will future generations understand the joy that my chosen flavor of Japanese econobox brought me if the model is allowed to fade into the ether?
With the iA, Mr. Regular has to console himself with a moment alone in a park bathroom stall. He’s grieving—and probably pooping. But mostly grieving.
Even the episode’s theme song is based on a song of mourning: Sufjan Stevens’ “Casimir Pulaski Day,” which is about a girl dying of bone cancer. Yikes.
I think Mr. Regular may need a hug. Somebody see if he’s okay.
[Correction: Mr. Regular can smile—for now. The Yaris hatch is still alive and well for 2017, as many of you have noted. We also reached out to a Toyota representative to clarify things a bit, and he confirmed that the Yaris and now-badged Toyota Yaris iA are both available for 2017, but could not speak on the company’s plans for either car beyond next year. We’ve since mended the text above to clarify that we’re talking about the rumored discontinuing of the baby ‘yota hatchback in the U.S.]