I’ve been taking my youngest to preschool for almost two years now and while I was aware of all of the toys they have access to during recess, I just recently noticed the wide variety of “Cozy Coupe” toy cars on the paved area.
While we owned a Cozy Coupe ourselves, we handed it off to our neighbors who have even smaller children, and I was never really aware that there is now such a wide variety of competitors in the marketplace. When I saw this one with the Di-Noc wood applique in the kids’ lot, I knew I had to share it with you. Armed with my camera and permission from the principal (thanks, Mary!), I took some shots to share.
The wood grain on this blue one really makes it stand out from the herd; obviously it is more upmarket than the rest. As opposed to most of these, both doors appear to open. On the others, in particular the Cozy Coupe, I wonder how they are marketed in countries with right-hand drive. Does it confuse their children?
Here is the one most commonly found in the wild, the Cozy Coupe, manufactured by Little Tikes. In the early ’90s, this was the highest volume selling car in the United States, selling over half a million a year; more on an annual basis than either the Ford Taurus or the Honda Accord. I believe this is a first-generation model due to the slim A-pillars. Later models had wider A-pillars (impeding visibility but presumably increasing roof crush strength) and were fully redesigned recently. There are three of these first-generation ones scattered about this lot, but I only shot one.
Next up is this sporty red and black model. It has a long front overhang (due to the hood) and if anything, seems more car-like than the Cozy Coupe. The windshield wiper is a nice touch, as are the racy three-spoke wheels.
There seem to be three main manufactures of these types of cars, but this one was not identifiable due to its missing badges. The shape of the cutout on the rear fender suggests that it may have been a Fisher-Price, though.
Of course these makers don’t miss a trick, marketing a model that is clearly in the idiom of the Dodge LaFemme with its overly pink theme. Either that or it is the Mary Kay version for aspiring door-to-door makeup sales representatives. Gotta get ’em started young!
I imagine it gets less use than the others due to its color; even in preschool, sadly, some themes quickly present themselves. It is made by Step2, a manufacturer founded by the same person that started Little Tikes, the maker of the Cozy Coupe.
Should the little ones display a reckless turn of speed on the playground, here is the Johnny Law model to take down the young offenders.
This is based on the second generation Cozy Coupe by Little Tikes (note the thicker A-pillars), and like the basic model, displays the Continental Kit rear end and the storage compartment for afternoon snacks or other little treasures. Something may have happened to this one as the door does not fully close anymore. Either a structural deficiency from hopping over one too many curbs or maybe just one too many days left in the blazing sunshine.
Ah, here is just the thing for some fun in the sun, a droptop version with a low “speedster”-style windscreen made by a company called Today’s Kids. This one does not even have doors, probably in order to increase the “wind in the hair” factor!
It does have a very prominent side view mirror, probably to better see the police model coming up fast in the passing lane! It also has an ignition key to even better recreate the feeling of true motoring. No new-fangled push-button starters on these classics!
This is the same as the last car, but in a white and purple color scheme, which gives off a very different vibe; less racy and more cruiser-ish.
It’s also missing its ragtop as compared to the red one, however this lets us see its large trunk. It appears that the stacked top flips up to allow access.
Here is another one by Step2. If anything, this one reminds me of the Dustbuster-style minivans of the early ’90s. It’s in very good condition and seems to be a bit more spacious than the rest. The large wraparound headlights are a nice touch.
The rear 3/4 view shows us that there is much more cargo capacity in this one with a long roof and a total of three sets of pillars making it look quite strong. The door did still open and close very well.
Ooh, the back hatch even opens! And the gas cap is still attached–on most of the other cars, they were missing.
Here is a group shot of them all, with a couple more Cozy Coupes (one with black A-pillars) and a wide variety of two and three wheeled contraptions in the background. Hopefully this was an informative excursion into many of our children’s first experiences piloting a vehicle these days.
Okay, one more, another view of the woodgrain one, my favorite!
My brother had one of those Cozy Coupes in the ’80s. I was too big for one, so I got the Corvette-esque Little Tikes Sport Coupe. It had rear-axle steering, was pedal-powered (front-wheel drive!), and you steered via two sliding “shifters” on either side of the seat.
I used to drive my little brother crazy, when he’d go scooting by the little alley behind our house and I’d get on the roof as a “passenger.” I finally had to stop after the front wheel spindles got bent due to my exploits and Dad got sick of fixing them. Ooops!
My Sport Coupe was just like this, only bright yellow (pic from goriamifamily.blogspot.com). I loved that thing!
I bought my son one of these for Christmas when he was about 4 or 5 years. He was so disappointed b/c it was not a batter operated car. He had this until he was at least 10 years old and he and his friends pretty much battered this car and loved it. His aunt had another one, newer than our when our daughter was born so my husband use the parts for the old one and repaired the new one and it last another 3-4 years once my daughter learned from her brother how to use it. It was the best thing i ever got my kids and he and his friends would agree.
Where can you find these???
My daughter started with a rideon toy car shaped like a VW Beetle ironicly I was restoring a 59 Beetle at the time and she spent much time watching the process One of her favourite playgrounds as a toddler was my EH sedan she would spend ages in it pretending to drive, poor kid she has grown up in NZ with a 59 Hillman in the carport from when she was 6 it was then a stripped wreck but now we drive around in it, Strangely she has little interest in cars teens are more into devices these days though soon I will teach her to drive that may change her outlook.
The Mk 1 Zephyr pedal car was the popular model in NZ during the early to mid fifties… usually painted in medium blue-grey with a white steering wheel ..the darned things handled like a Zephyr too as the ‘tyres’ were just thin rubber ‘bands’ that peeled off the rims during hard cornering ..they were quite powerful tho’ as kids, especially the boys, ate a lot of red meat in those days (well before anyone knew about the arterial danger of cholesterol) ..yes, it was meat in the morning ..meat for lunch (stuffed in between hunks of coarse white bread coated with thick slabs of gooey Anchor butter) ..and meat for dinner (roasted in lard with the potatoes and kumara) ..no wonder we were all ittle All Blacks by age five, complete with bulging leg muscles and thighs like Arnie’s, deep throaty voices, and inappropriate thoughts about our aunties
(guess it was some kind of nutritional abuse we suffered at the hands of our mothers, inconveniently squeezing out as they did yet another budding All Black every nine months ..life was cheap back then ..but we had to rebuild the population after the japs and nazis had done their best to kill us off ..and no-one lost sleep over killer pedal cars
I had a pedal Jeep backintheday.
…one christmas i threw such a tantrum after i had rolled the Zephyr and the top of the steering wheel was crushed that i got an “upgrade”(?!?) to a ‘Cranbrook’ ..another grey lump ..i loathed it
..some kind of foul import chrysler product that i didn’t understand ..it was a hideous malformed brute to my eyes (whereas the Zephyr had been quite ‘cute’ until i had destroyed it)
so carefully one evening i left it tightly wedged behind the left rear wheel of my father’s big old turd brown Humber Hawk and the passenger side of the rear carport support..
he came out the back door and straight into the Hawk as usual (i was watching out my bedroom window …the whole bloody carport came down
..and the ‘Cranbrook’ was essentially flat at one end and half width at the other
…i got the worst hiding of my life to date (and no replacement pedal car!)
after that my mother reduced my daily hogget intake curiously enough too (just plain bread and water for some considerable time)
…but by 12 i was back driving ..a real one this time
Lol, love it Craig! We didn’t have pedal cars growing up – my parents’ house was (and, oddly enough, still is) on a steep hillside above the main road, so pedal cars + my younger sisters and I = certain death! My grandparents lived on the family farm though, which was lovely and flat Waikato pasture, but rather than pedal cars we had trikes and bikes as soon as we were old enough (and real motorbikes before I was quite old enough, but that’s another, far more interesting and painful story…)
The Cranbrook was a stodgy car they built them in Aussie until the Valiant was established about 63 I think V8 motors and tacked on fins a real dogs breakfast but still the old 53 Cranbrook underneath. Its competition was the 55 Customline still in production in 58 and various barebones Chev Delray 6 cylinders powered with leather seat facings for luxury it sold I know where one is in mint cond.
I had the thin pillar cozy coupe when I was a kid. Was the first car I modified too, I figured out how to remove the top and leave the pillars, making it exactly like a 55 thunderbird lol
Love the woodgrain!
This one did it for me… and unlike the cozy coupes, it had steering and pedal powered rear wheel drive. (And, of course, an electronic horn that played Dixie.)
Naturally, the first step was to take advantage of the low coefficient of friction on those plastic tires and get it as sideways as possible in the driveway. But soon I learned how to carefully navigate our small house without hitting anything… then dad brought out the cones and taught me parallel-parking at age 6 or so. Soon I was throwing my stuffed animals in the back, packing a snack, and taking off on road trips around the block. The rhythmic clacking of the sidewalk reminded me of the expansion joints on the Beltway.
Every kid has a few cars they like to play with, but without a doubt, this thing had me hooked on the act of driving.
The gap between outgrowing that plastic Mopar and being ready for the real thing was a painfully long one, but luckily video games were just hitting their stride then. (Atari’s Hard Drivin’ actually taught me how to drive stick… but that’s probably an article in and of itself)
Looks more like a 68 GTO than a 69 VCharger. decals notwithstanding. The carousel red color,Pontiac nose and the dual Hood scoops say “Judge” to me.
Perhaps inspired by the affordable manufacturing costs of these plastic cars, Chrysler designed the CCV prototype in the mid-90s, with an injection-molded plastic body. You can see the Citroen 2Cv influence in it’s design.
Neat article. I never knew there were so many variants!
Even out in the country my sister and I had one of those Cozy Coupes. It was almost certainly used when we got it, and we never put that many miles on it. The ride is a little rough on a gravel driveway with bald tires and no suspension. The only memory I have of it is being too big to get in it.
More likely we’d be seen on our pedal tractors, a John Deere 4020 with matching wagon or a Case IH that looked like any of the 20 or 30-series Magnum models. Actual rubber tires, plus I think the axle was geared down for better traction.
I had a Knight Rider pedal car too. It had an opening hood, door and trunk, a light-up “sensor” on the hood and KITT would talk, too! When my dad sold his Harley Knucklehead, he put its Illinois plate on KITT for me! I totally wore that thing out, I loved it so much. It was more or less replaced with the Sport Coupe I mentioned further up (pic from ebay.co.uk).
hot damn ~ i want one!!
This one’s on eBay right now–new in box–but brace yourself for a heart-pounding price!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-Knight-Rider-Coleco-Knight-2000-KITT-Pedal-Car-ULTRA-RARE-BRAND-NEW-/321335214260?pt=Outdoor_Toys_Structures_US&hash=item4ad11240b4
Between the gravel road and driveway as well as a tall grassy lawn I never had one of these growing up nor did I use them much at school. What I did have was a hollow plastic pedal powered tractor and a repaired “girl” themed Big Wheel pops got out of a dumpster for me. I also rode in a wagon like Calvin and Hobbes and played with a large wooden spool my folks got from NYSEG. There were other wheeled toys as well such as a Chevy C-10 rotting on the lawn and mom’s daily driver Dart.
Champion pedal car with Jet Flow Drive @1951 – my first daily driver.
I believe we had the same first car. Mine was in 1950. It went through 3 other kids and was stolen out of our garage after I put on a “custom” blue paint job for my little brother.
“Sup,Ladeez!”
I wanted one of those SO BAD. You luckies.
This is a great article!
My Spawn had two; the Cozy Coupe and the wagon (the first two pictured). Whenever I washed the car, one of the two was washed by Mini Me at the same time.
The wagon had another terrific talent. We lived in St. Joseph, Missouri, at the time. Due to the rolling hills of the semi-prairie land, our yard was terraced on the left and right. The next door neighbors had a child nine months older than mine. So, many a day we rolled the wagon to the top of the hill and gave it a push. It would roll end over end all the way down with the hill being long enough for it to land on its wheels nearly every time.
Those were the days…
I’ve been a car enthusiast since I was young enough and small enough to ride one of these.
exactly
Goin to work with Dad on saturdays didnt help I had a whole country GM dealership to explore Bedford towtruck there was a lendlease Fargo 3 tonner various Fergy tractors no wonder I liked cars the old man made certain of it.
aarrgh the Fergy 28 was a TRACTOR… 2188cc’s of ‘English-By-Jove-Ole-Boye’ Standard Vanguard stump-tearing pure animal virility ! ! !
..wedging that little pencil-thick chromed throttle lever hard back against the stop in 4th gear…the stirring crescendo of rising and falling starved pistons and tiny valves ..and (wait for it) .. the beginnings of a hesitant ‘six-inch-off-the-ground’ front wheelstand. . . .enough to make the Lanz Bulldog slip out a small nervous fart !
Started with a pedal tractor, it was red and grey, so it must have been a Massey Ferguson.
Later on something like this, called a skelter. What’s the English/American name ?
A pedal go-kart ?
I had a red tractor as well with pedals in Germany, it was great. This would have been the early 70’s. My brother and I “rediscovered” it in the late 70’s and rode it down our steep paved street at full speed until the wheels literally disintegrated. Good times!
I think that pedal car is a Kettler brand, very popular in Germany and quite pricy both over there and over here. Eventually a lot of knockoffs came on the market but not exactly cheap either. Kind of the European equivalent of the U.S. Big Wheel.
Right Jim, the skelter~pedal car was a Kettler ! Now I remember, it was in the early seventies. It had a lever to push a metal rod against the rear tire, that was the brake. Literally a handbrake.
The pedal cars we had looked a bit simpler (no mudguards) yet more “heavy duty” than the one in the picture.
A red tractor in Germany in the early seventies. Could have been a Schlüter (the tractor brand, not a toy brand).
“Pedal car”, I think. They had these at the school where I went to kindergarten (1996-1997)! Lots of fun!
Come to think of it, I had the “Today’s Kids” knockoff of the Cozy Coupe at home.
All our earlier ride-ons were metal, including the Radio Patrol cycle pictured. A Big Wheel eventually entered the picture, but my three brothers and I were pretty rough on anything with wheels, and I think we fairly quickly flat-spotted the ‘big’ wheel.
I desparately wanted a Big Wheel, but we had a gravel driveway.
Me too – but by the time they came out, I was maybe 3 years too old for one. I feel cheated to this very day. 🙁
Downunder ones were made by a company with the branding ‘Triang’ ..using very heavy gauge pressed and folded sheet metal ..built to last a lifetime ..the tiny axles and crap wheels were the achilles heel ..but the steering arrangement was excellent ..suspension non-existent ..pedal gearing fairly low so top speed quite restricted by ‘blurred legs’ probably red-lining somewhere in the region of 180 to 200 rpm, however rolling start acceleration was ‘neck-snapping’ by the standards of the day.. we used them as dodgems!! ..no seat belts and no cockpit padding in those days ..so many a bloodied nose and ‘lost’ front teeth ..excellent All Back conditioning straight from the cot..
if you had a problem with a kid you arranged to meet him at 12 o’clock by the flagpole for a ‘head-on’… the winner being the kid who could take the most punishment and still remain conscious
..good days!
The kid whose dad owned the garage at the bottom of our street had the coolest pedal jeep 12 volt powered it had a starter motor fitted to the rear axle one wheel drive
These guys dont understand Kiwi full contact motorsport, yet but that was the training ground
every kid virtually was raised on beer …i gave my boy his first beer at the Methven Hotel public bar and restaurant and he was still in a little zip-up carry bag sort of thing next to us on the seat …one of the punters made a comment ‘you’re starting him early!’ ..but that’s how it was ..the punter ran out the door then ..he could see my boy wasn’t happy with the comment
Our house was on a dead-end, which had an intersecting (also dead-end) road with three or four houses before the pavement stopped at the top of the hill (maybe a 30′ / 9m drop total).
A common summertime activity was for all the neighborhood kids to gather at the top of said hill, each mounted on their ride-on of choice. Someone would holler “GO!” and we’d all push off as fast as we could go. There was a point about 1/3 way down after which everyone attempted to force/crash everyone else off the road.
Loads of fun, but hard on the rolling stock and jeans knees (Mom bought patches by the gross).
To me that last green one has Nissan S-Cargo all over it:
I want to paint a huge “S” all over my car so people can say, “look at the S-car go!” Sorry, bad joke I remember from the movie, “Trading Places”
I was 5 in 1964 – I got what might have been the predecessor of The Big wheel, a Blue Metal “X-15” . This used a single black steering stick which controlled the turning via the rear wheels. Leaning into a corner with your butt also helped. It weighed a ton and was a monster to pedal uphill. I was only 9 or 10 when my oldest nephew got his first Big wheel and I was envious of the advancements in plastics that enabled such a superior mover.
Does anyone else here remember these? I wonder how few of these have survived.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?LH_BIN=1&_nkw=x+15+pedal+car&_sop=1
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Old-1964-Mattel-X-15-Pedal-Rocket-Space-Car-V-RROOM-motor-toy-/111345208703?pt=Diecast_Vehicles&hash=item19ecb10d7f
Oh man, that thing is so cool!
The big wheels didn’t look as cool.
Wonder if it could fit a grown man? Looks big in the picture. If so, bye bye bike and skateboard, and hello X-15 for in between lecture transport!
Haha, I had (and still have in my possession) the Step 2 teal with off-white top. I was the only one I knew who had that one. Everyone else seemed to have the more basic red and yellow Cozy Coupe. I always felt like I was driving the Cadillac of Minivans.
Brendan – That explains…a lot! (Just kidding!) It looks like it would roll around pretty well with the wheels being a bit larger and also skinnier, i.e. less susceptible to bumps etc.
Haha, I had that same one!
Definitely the best one of the lot!
Oh man the memories!
I had one just like the one featured 14 pictures from the top or 3 from the bottom. Step2 DustBuster. I had it in my grandmothers house. Might still be there? Not sure.
I have more memories of my Power Wheel Jeep Wrangler with camo and auxiliary gas cans. That bad boy saw me through many miles and it was still around until we moved about 6 years ago.
Popping the hood would reveal the battery packs.
Can’t find a pic just with a quick search, but it’s the older model. I think it even had grilles for the round headlights.
I also had a Big Wheel trike at my grandmothers house.
Man, those were the days, when bikes and other wheeled vehicles were the main form of entertainment. And I’m a product of the 90s. So much change in such little time.
Now it’s video games and phones.
Did they look at you funny when you asked to do a photoshops of their fleet? Lol
I never had a Cozy Coupe myself but both of my younger brothers had a version of them.
My brother Daniel (born 1989) had the original version in probably 1991 or so. I do remember trying to cram my 6-7 year old self into it though, haha.
My youngest brother Howard, born 1995 (who is set to graduate high school in just a few weeks, how scary is that? Born in 1995 and is technically an adult) had the 2nd version like the red and black one above except his was yellow with a blue top. I was much too old by that time to try to fit into that one. I do remember that you could easily pop the roof off of it and it was in two pieces. I would pop the roof off for him and just leave the windshield half because he liked pretending it was a convertible.
Well Jim, this has to be one of the weirdest posts yet on CC, yet was strangely fascinating! There weren’t any of these Cozy Coupesque creations at the kindergarten I went to, and living on the side of a steep hill meant we didn’t have any as young kids in our household. I guess things like the Cozy Coupes are around here nowadays, but I’ve never noticed them. My two and a half-year-old nephew wouldn’t be seen dead in anything as cutesy as a Cozy Coupe though, growing up on a farm and watching his Dad on the tractors means he prefers to cruise on his John Deere! Same as this one:
As a kid in the ’70s, I had a yellow plastic pedal car. Though it bore no particular resemblance to one, and my parents were GM buyers in those days, I decided that it was a Plymouth Duster, and named it “Dusty”.
Ha! I have a gen1 cosy coupe behind my house currently. My wife snagged it at a garage sale for a friend with a toddler.
Based on observations of my kids, braking is so-so and handling seems poor in these.
I had a 65 Mustang ride on toy as a kid, which was far superior in looks and handling because you could actually steer it!
My first set of wheels had a chassis made of wood. The axles and wheels came of a broken baby stroller and the steering was accomplished by pulling ropes to pivot the front axle about a center bolt. The local shoemaker’s business did well because we used our heels for brake pads.
I had a similar one my brother and I made. The chassis was a piece of thick plywood with 2X4’s with Soap Box Derby axles and wheels. A home made ‘seat’ and the rope and center bolt steering. A buddy would sometimes tow me with his home made mini bike with a Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine. The ‘brake’ was a piece of wood that you would grab and pivot to drag on the ground. One day we were going along at a good clip and the rope got tangled in one of the front wheels and the steering axle was pulled so hard the wheel got yanked under the plywood and I got launched into the air doing a face flop in a neighbors driveway. Fun times.
Dad built my sisters and I trolleys as kids. Chassis was a plank of wood, seat was wooden with wooden backrest and sides, front and rear axles and wheels were from old lawn mowers – and thus very sturdy. Centre-bolt steering, no brakes. My parents’ section was steep and grassy, so no good for Cozy Coupes, but perfect for the trolleys! Our favourite pastime was seeing who could execute the most spectacular crash or series of barrel-rolls at the bottom of the hill. Good memories!
I had one of the old-school metal ones, originally a fire truck with most of the “equipment” gone and later painted blue like dad’s. When it suffered the usual body-too-heavy-for-the-axles issues I got a Big Wheel and learned you CAN drift a front-drive…if you shove the rearend out enough with yours…
My kids each have a Cozy Truck… like a Cozy Coupe, but with big, knobby tires and a tiny little pickup bed. They also have a pair of eyes in the windshield area, which seems to be pretty common for these things in the post-“Cars” movie era.
Here in Germany, of course you can’t get around the Bobby Car. I actually don’t remember if I ever had one, what I did have was this 3-wheeler tractor. My grandpa even built a wooden trailer for it later. Here is a video still of me falling down from said tractor, as well as an added bonus of family cars from that very same video: my dad’s Opel Kadett, my uncle’s Audi 80 and my grandpa’s Mazda 929.
Right on Robotriot, such a trike-pedal tractor was often the very first vehicle you drove without any help. Just like you said, with a trailer.
Once you were a few years older the pedal tractor got bigger and looked more like the real thing. I searched the web, and this is exactly the pedal tractor I mentioned above: a Massey Ferguson 135.
(Photo: http://www.tractorfan.nl – 133mf)
By the way, I must say that those Cozy Coupes look WAY too cute for a boy.
Never heard of them before. I’m glad they weren’t around in my neck of the woods some 45 years ago. A son of a truck driver, driving around in one of those ?? NO WAY !!
Nice one, I sure would have liked one of those as a kid. I never had any of the more advanced pedal cars/tractors/karts though.
Could this be the inspiration for the Smart car?
What no Brougham model?
These pictures are very nice. However, they show the adult’s perspective. I wonder how would these cars appear from the perspective of the tikes who use them?
Here’s me in my first set of wheels. My ‘Da’- maternal grandfather built it for me.
From the number I’d reckon it came down the assembly line in 1962.
Superb article, Jim. Wagon with woodness for me too.
Excellent article. All these pictures raise a question though – are these all older Canadian cars? I only ask because there is nothing left of the floorpans. 🙂
I grew up in the age of the cheap sheetmetal pedal car. The heavy cast ones were long gone and the plastic ones were years away. Mine did not age well and I came home from school one day to find it out with the trash. I thought that it still had some miles left in it, but my mother disagreed. My wife and I have these same kind of discussions to this day.
I have a page on Facebook (cozy coupe customs) for people who are building cozy coupes of all kinds in all sorts of different ways. it is a good page to bring this wide spread yet small community together. the reason I am posting on your site today is with this article being so good for information on the older models and some of little tykes competitors I have come to find that the older models are excellent for upgrades and customization.
Anyways I was wondering if you still had a few left that you would part ways with like the 1990’s wood grain cozy van or if you could point me in the right direction to help me continue my search for these awesome classics.
Check out the page sometime and take a look at some of the things we are doing. feel free to join the page and share your knowledge of these awesome kids toys like you have so well here.
The picture is an example of some of other members as well as one of mine that we have done already.