Car of the Month – July, 2020
2020 Little Tikes Cozy Coupe
2020 Little Tikes Cozy Coupe
Engine type – Human
Power – 2- or 4-foot power (depending on passenger)
Curb weight – 19 lbs
Top Speed – as fast as humanly possible
Number built – 10,000,000+
MSRP price – $54.99
First sold in 1979 as one of the first molded-plastic toy cars sold in the United States, in 1998 it was called the “world’s best-selling car for much of this decade,” outselling the Honda Accord and Ford Taurus. By 1991, the Cozy Coupe was selling 500,000 units per year, making it the top-selling model in the United States, outselling the 399,000 Accords and 299,000 Taurus vehicles sold that year. By 1997, its sales of 313,000 units in the U.S. and another 100,000 sold in the United Kingdom in 1997 would have made it the fifth-best-selling car in the U.S. among real vehicles.
The car’s design, described as “a cross between a Volkswagen Beetle and Fred Flintstone’s vehicle,” was created by Jim Mariol of Cincinnati-based Design Alliance, who had worked as a designer at Chrysler starting in 1952.