The Cozy Coupe is a red and yellow toy car manufactured and distributed by

Little Tikes Little Tikes is an American manufacturer of children's toys, with headquarters and manufacturing located in Hudson, Ohio. The company also has other manufacturing and distribution facilities in Asia and Europe. Little Tikes' products are mostly l ...

, an American manufacturer of children's toys based in

Hudson, Ohio Hudson is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 23,110 at the 2020 census. It is a suburban community in the Akron metropolitan statistical area and the larger Cleveland–Akron–Canton Combined Statistical Area, th ...

Design

The car's design, described as "a cross between a

Volkswagen Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...

and

Fred Flintstone Fred Flintstone is the main character of the animated sitcom '' The Flintstones'', which aired during prime-time on ABC during the original series' run from 1960 to 1966. Fred is the husband of Wilma Flintstone and father of Pebbles Flintsto ...

's vehicle", was created by Jim Mariol of

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

-based Design Alliance, who had worked as a designer at

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

starting in 1952 and engineered by Shirish Patel, Little Tikes' Vice President of Engineering and Product Engineer John Fawcett.

Evolution

First sold in 1979 as one of the first molded-plastic toy cars sold in the United States, it was called the "world's best-selling car for much of this decade" by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' in 1998, outselling the

Honda Accord The , also known as the in Japan and China for certain generations, is a series of cars manufactured by Honda since 1976, best known for its four-door sedan variant, which has been one of the best-selling cars in the United States since 1989. ...

and

Ford Taurus The Ford Taurus is an automobile that was manufactured by the Ford Motor Company in the United States from the 1986 to 2019 model years. Introduced in late 1985 for the 1986 model year, six generations were produced over 34 years; a brief hiat ...

. 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 US and another 100,000 sold in the United Kingdom in 1997, would have made it the fifth-best-selling car in the US among real vehicles. By 1998, Tom Murdough, the founder of Little Tikes who had left the company to start competitor Step 2, had pointed out that the Cozy Coupe's design was becoming dated, looking "somewhat like the VW Beetle in looks and design", reflecting what was "a great design for its time, but it also looks like it was designed in the '70s." Little Tikes had introduced a number of brand extensions in 1996, including a purple roadster that looks akin to a

Plymouth Prowler The Plymouth Prowler, later the Chrysler Prowler, is a retro-styled production sports car manufactured and marketed from 1997 to 2002 by DaimlerChrysler, based on the 1993 concept car of the same name. The Prowler was offered in a single g ...

, a blue minivan that looks akin to a

Dodge Caravan The Dodge Caravan (and the long-wheelbase Dodge Grand Caravan) is a series of minivans that was manufactured by Chrysler from the 1984 to 2020 model years. The Dodge version of the Chrysler minivans, the Caravan was marketed as both a passenger v ...

, an SUV, two pickup models and the yellow and teal Grand Coupe. While overall sales for Little Tikes increased after the introduction of the new models, the Cozy Coupe lost its spot as the industry's top seller. By 1998, Little Tikes introduced the Cozy Coupe II, a redesigned model of its original classic that retained the red and yellow bubble-shaped exterior, while adding thicker pillars on the front roof, among other enhancements, including a remote control that makes sounds of doors unlocking, the horn beeping, the engine starting and a car alarm. J. C. Penney had included the updated car in its catalog starting in August 1998, with sales since its introduction doubling the sales in the corresponding five months of 1997. Total 1998 sales were expected to exceed 250,000 units. In 2009 Rakesh Patel, the owner of the first Cozy Coupe ever made, donated the very first Cozy Coupe off of the assembly line from 1979 to the collection of the

Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum is a transportation museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is part of the Western Reserve Historical Society's Cleveland History Center in University Circle, and its collection includes about 170 cars. It ...

in celebration of the coupe's 30th anniversary.

References

{{Reflist Products introduced in 1979 Toy cars and trucks