News is once again surfacing that a pickup truck model may be offered by the Scion brand. LeftLane News and CarBuzz are both raising the notion that such a model loosely based on the Toyota A-Bat concept could be headed for production.

The compact truck would be based on a car/crossover platform said to be shared with the Toyota RAV4 architecture. That would make it slightly smaller inside and out than a Toyota Tacoma pickup which uses a traditional ladder frame and body.

While the A-Bat Concept truck shown is mentioned in almost every report we come across about the possible new offering from Scion, the actual production model is not likely to look much like it. The A-Bat looks much like a Honda Ridgeline truck which has seen declining popularity in the market, and is larger than the Scion model would be.

Additionally there is talk that the Scion truck would offer hybrid powertrains. While that is indeed a possibility we would lean toward Autoweek Magazine’s earlier thoughts that the truck would be offered both as a Toyota and a Scion with slightly different styling.

The Toyota variant would offer hybrid powertrain technology and even potentially be marketed into the Prius family of vehicles. The Scion version would be offered in a less expensive and sportier styled gasoline engined version only.

Toyota compact pickups were a top ten purchase for first time young consumers in the 1980′s and early 1990′s. Offering a Scion pickup might be a way for the company to tap back into the youth market with a versatile and active lifestyle model.

2014 is the target date for production according to reports however all new out there states that a Scion pick up truck is not 100% certain, but likely.