Can Toyota Get Its Mojo Back?

But an edgy new Web site and booger jokes won't be enough to give Toyota street cred. "First they've got to get cars that appeal to young people," chides Richard Colliver, an executive vice president at Honda, which attracts younger buyers with sporty models like its S2000 roadster. Toyota's safe and sterile image may make it hard for its youth models to gain traction. "We've been selling the Echo to 50- and 60-year-olds," says Memphis dealer Kent Ritchey. Toyota insists it's luring youngsters: the Echo sells to buyers with an average age of 38 and more than half of Celica's buyers are under 35. But the spunky RAV-4 sport utility Toyota aimed at Xers three years ago attracted boomers, analysts say. Nancy Caspell, a 19-year-old with a pierced tongue, got a $23,000 Honda C-RV after rejecting the RAV-4's styling: "They were trying too hard to be modern."

Yet if Toyota's models get too phat, the automaker risks alienating the boomers who drove it to record sales last year. Ohio steel salesman Robert Hoegler has bought Toyotas for 20 years because they are reliable and conservative. "I'm definitely not into flash," says Hoegler, 52, who just got a $33,000 Toyota Avalon, a big sedan derivative of Detroit's land yachts. To appease boomers and overcome its stigma with Xers, Toyota is considering a new brand name for the cars it targets to younger buyers. The as-yet-unnamed Toyota youth brand could have its own special space in the showroom, a respectable distance from the staid Camrys.

Toyota is gambling that its products can span the generations. "We have room on our lap for boomers and their children," says Toyota executive vice president Jim Press. After all, the kids and their parents are both grooving to the music of Santana these days. But if Toyota isn't careful, it might strike a false chord with both groups.

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