America’s Best Selling Car: Little Tikes Cozy Coupe

For many it remains the first car they have ever driven or the first thing that comes to mind when you want to buy your kid a Christmas present. Though it's a tiny and made of plastic sports car, it was sold in over 457,000 units last year, thus becoming America's best selling car.

If you first thought that we were talking about the Toyota Camry or Honda Accord, now you have probably realized that it’s a toy-car that took everybody by surprise. It outsold every single car in the United States in 2008 and will also enter the Cleveland’s Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum.

The Little Tikes Cozy Coupe, made by The Little Tikes Co. in Hudson, Ohio, sold more than 10 million units in its 30-year history, as related by Carscoop via Boston.com. The tiny car also outsold the Accord and the Ford Taurus in the 90’s.

The Cozy Coupe allows toddlers to move around with the car as they poke their legs through to the ground, while sitting on a bench-style seat. The car not only helps the child properly develop the motoring functions, but it’s also fun. Probably every kid in America wanted one for Christmas or birthday, the way the car sold.

Now this classic toy car won its place in the Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland, which will host one of the first Cozy Coupes that left the production line in 1979. The car’s design is described as “a cross between a Volkswagen Beetle and Fred Flintstone's vehicle” and was created by one of Chrysler’s designers.

Little Tikes Co. has introduced several brand extensions in 1996, including a purple roadster, an SUV, two pickup models and a yellow Grand Coupe. The Cozy Coupe was also upgraded, the Cozy Coupe II being introduced in 1998.

Though the model maintained the red and yellow bubble shaped exterior, thicker pillars on the front roof were added, as well as features like a remote control that makes sounds of doors unlocking, the horn beeping, the engine starting and of course, a car alarm.