Toyota Wants To Makes Cars Cool Again To Young Buyers - Do They Have A Chance?

Toyota scraps plans for sporty convertible. Toyota wants to make cars cool again. Yeah ok.

Other car companies pick up the slack when it comes to keeping cars cool. But most people don't need "cool" they just need a reliable vehicle that can get them from point A to point B, and Toyota continues to deliver there.

Anyway many people think that "green" is cool, and Toyota sells a lot of Priuses so there's that. I think once they stop making their hybrid cars look absolutely appalling they'll win over even more of the younger crowd.

Toyota vehicles were never 'cool' to younger Americans.

That's the reason SCION was created. Just look at what's happened to SCION. It's basically a dead brand.

Toyota can do whatever it wants. They have the money. It's all about the money....

Yup...but please hire a European designer to make beautiful, inexpensive performance cars...no more oragami designs !

When you're on top you have to worry about the market shrinking.

Toyota has NEVER fully understood cool. The GT86/FRS is hobbled by the noisy Subaru engine when Toyota has far smoother engines. Toyota styling is either bland or bizarre. Toyota created Scion to be hip and then saddled with boring, pointless vehicles. Toyota builds appliances, not cars. Even Lexus is floundering trying to be stylish and what we got was the disgusting face hole. Ford is grinning. Hyundai/Kia is laughing. VW is guardedly optimistic.

Right, because the Supra and Celica GT-S weren't cool?

Hey RobertPaulson and you too MattDarringer, where were you in the 80's? Did you both have paper bags over your heads? I guess you did, so I will educate you. Have you ever heard of the Supra, the various models of the Celica, the MR2 (a 2-seater mid-engine sports car). RobertPaulson and MattDarringer, yes both of you, you know what? These cars were ALL FUN TO DRIVE. So if your heads are still in that paper bag, take your head out of the bag and get back to reality. MattDarringer, that is a VERY ignorant and foolish comment that Toyota has NEVER fully understood cool. Unbelievable.

Toyota did make interesting fun to drive cars in the 80's as did Honda and the fledgling Acura, but that was approximately 30 years ago and only of interest today in a historical sense. Today, Toyota's focus really is somewhere else and it can't be judged by cars it made 3 decades ago. Also, realize that some of the readers here are less than 30 years old, so there is that too.

Toyoties will have to do a complete rethink of the car design process if they every think they can become 'cool.' Toyota lacks emotionality and soul.

bring back the supra- its just that simple.

There were a lot of boring Celicas. The first MR2 was styled by a ruler and the second was Camry bland. Toyota does not understand cool. It really is that simple.

They've got the same corporate "group think" problem that killed Microsoft. In the 90's they convinced themselves that Americans want boring cars (their response to the success of the "rounded" Taurus). They delivered boring cars. The ultimate was the Echo 2-door sedan, better known as "the clown car". So they replaced it with the Yaris it was based on (a "Japanese looking" design) and sales increased.
Now they've flipped their group-think to "Americans want unusual-looking cars". And the ultimate is the hideous new ForeRunner. (I hope that's the ultimate)

The other one that's not talked about is the takeover by the bean-counters. Benz was #1 when the engineers designed the cars. They're still recovering from the takeover by the bean-counters in the '90s. Apple used to design products for customers. Now the bean-counters design products for the shareholders. The iPhone is still popular with grannies and homeless people, but the folks wanting new tech have Android phones. And then there's Toyota. When they were chasing GM & VW for market share (more than 1/4 century ago) they were building what people wanted. Even taking risks (the MR2) that paid off. But now they're trending toward "What can we build for cheap that will go 100,000 miles before it falls apart?" at least that seems to be the design guidelines for the Corolla and Yaris. And Camry. And Avalon ...