I’ve had it. I’m done. This world is full of so much joy and wonder, and yet there are so many forces that seem to be dedicated to making it into some bland, soulless nightmare of avarice and mindless status-grubbing. We fight against it the best we can, but then sometimes we’re dealt such a blow that it’s hard to go on. I feel like such a blow was dealt today, a blow that makes me fear for our very own children, and what makes this blow so painful is the source: Little Tikes, makers of the legendary childhood automotive icon, the Cozy Coupe.
I’ve believed in the pure childhood joy of the Cozy Coupe for decades. It’s the car of childhood, it’s how you got around. When you’re four or five and have a busy playdate schedule and strict naptimes and a stack of coloring this high that’s not gonna color itself, the Cozy Coupe is how you got around to make everything happen. The Cozy Coupe is childhood.
And, sure, I’ve voiced my concerns when I’ve felt there were design missteps in the Cozy Coupe, like when they briefly moved the eyes out of the headlamps, but overall I’ve been a staunch supporter of this delightful little ketchup-and-mustard-colored little wheeled plastic vehicle. But now? Now Little Tikes has gone too far, and in the process has turned their back on a whole planet full of children. They call it the “Cloud Collection.” I call it an abomination, urinating in the face of everything good and right about childhood.
Here’s what Little Tikes sent us to promote this atrocity:
Little Tikes is giving the classic Cozy Coupe a clean, timeless white redesign as part of its new Cloud Collection, bringing the beloved childhood ride into the world of today’s design-conscious homes. And while the look may be refreshed, everything that matters most remains the same… the durability and quality Little Tikes is known for, proudly made in the USA, and the active, imaginative play that has been at the heart of the brand for nearly six decades.
The white Cozy Coupe is available for preorder today, September 9, ahead of the Cloud Collection’s Amazon launch on September 15.
First, and most importantly, fuck off, Little Tikes. “Bringing the beloved childhood ride into the world of today’s design-conscious homes?” You know what they mean by this, don’t you? This isn’t “design-conscious.” And the fuck do they mean by “today’s” design-conscious homes? No one in the past cared about how their homes looked? That’s utter horseshit. What Little Tikes is talking about is the miserable recent trend of beigification, where, for whatever insipid reasons, popular culture seems to be sucking the color out of everything, and there have even been studies showing this to be true. We see it happening in car colors, of course, but it’s everywhere. It’s like the world is on a mission to make every habitable space look like some stupid boring-ass AirBnB, where the color palette is limited to what you might see on a plate of fried food, with the occasional bit of drywall or bathtub caulk thrown in.
The very notion that Lil Tykes is making this bleached, color-desaturated shell of a Cozy Coupe to better fit in with the fiercely orchestrated bland home decor of boring people with zero notable design ideas, taste, or courage, is appalling. I mean, look at this shit:
What kid wants that? What kid is going to be excited about a room with all the color sucked out of it? The kind of kid that hopes for a pack of crayons like these, I imagine:
And “imagine” is what I have to do. Because no kid wants this. The reason this is such a miserable betrayal is because this Cozy Coupe is the first one designed for parents’ needs and wants over the kids. And even worse, these needs and wants are garbage. Boring, bland, beige basura.
If you’re a mom or dad who has held off from getting your kid something fun because it has too much color that won’t work in your carefully curated color-free, all-natural tones taupe nightmare of a home, then guess what? You’re a lousy parent. And your home is boring and stupid and your natural fiber beige clothes make you look like a dumpy peasant, you miserable sack of farina-colored shit.
Look at this image Little Tikes is using. What a fucking joke. Give that little girl some fucking colors to enjoy! Look at those triangular pennants on that shelf of stupid woven baskets. They’re as colorful as anything gets here, and the colors – beige, almost brown, nearly mint, and light beige – have colors like La Croix has “flavors.” It’s a barely hanging-on memory of colors, like a belch of flavor into seltzer water.
This is all miserable. Why are they doing this? These poor desaturated Cozy Coupes even have a sort of creepy, ghostly feeling, like those white-painted bicycles left at locations were people died. It feels funereal, like Victorian daguerreotype of a stillborn.
Little Tikes calls this a “clean, timeless white redesign,” but nothing could be further from the truth. This isn’t timeless; it’s a direct, trendy leaping upon of a current bandwagon of lazy, formless, conformist, joyless Instagram design trends. You know what actually is timeless? This:
If you’re a little kid reading this, and your selfish, social-media-obsessed, hyper-image conscious and tasteless parents saddle you with one of these alabaster nightmares, let me suggest a plan: add your own color to your Cozy Coupe. Do it any way you can: crayons, markers, paint, condiments, whatever it takes. But make that Cozy Coupe your own, and give it color, any colors you want! Don’t be subdued by the glum tyranny of beiges! Push back! You’re our only hope, because at this rate, if the Cozy Coupe has fallen to the Forces Of Desaturated Blandness, then what chance do we have.
Kids of the world, do what you love: color. We need you now more than ever.
All images: Little Tykes
Torch continues to magnificently out-Torch himself, as always in the name of basic decency.
Wonderful article;
if I did not know Torch better, would think this was ghost written by Lewis Black
the city’s been bled white.
My father, who is color blind, used to refer to every car color he couldn’t recognize as “beige metallic”. The rest of the family insisted there is no such color.
When we visited the Audi pavilion in the Autostadt two weeks ago, I was shocked to discover that Audi presented two new colors called Siambeige Metallic and Karatbeige Metallic. Of course, the samples looked like toilet bowls from the 70s.
Fuck beigeification. And fuck Audi.
I strongly approve of both the quantity and quality of profanities used in this article. Excellent fucking work, Torch!
I blame HGTV for the war on color. Fuck HGTV and their decades-long shitacular television programs featuring insipid houses decorated like psych wards. HGTV can pry the color out of my cold, dead hands!
In all seriousness, this toy does genuinely make me sad. I can’t help but view it as an example of how the ultimate aspiration in 2026 is to have your life look good on Instatock. Can’t we at least allow small children to have fun without worrying about how it disrupts our artificially ordered, aesthetically-centered existences?
That whole trend of “decorate your house like you’re planning on selling it tomorrow” can jump right up its own ass and die. Neutrals have their place, but it’s not every goddamn place.
When we sold our condo in 2019 (yep… *just* in time) I fought like hell not to paint the cherry wood cabinets… flat grey. Ultimately the realtor won, the place sold for a great price, and I died a little inside.
No idea what they were going to do with the 12ft tall built in bookshelves (also cherry). Damn I miss those bookshelves.
That’s a travesty that they made you paint those cabinets. Some people call them “dated”, but I think they look elegant.
I disagree. 2-3x more profanities would be entirely justified.
I can imagine kids raised in these environments growing up and rebelling into Peter Max extremism.
On the uplifting side—we moved into a 1947 cottage that was previously owned by a union carp. It’s all rich ambers and solid wood and windows and not in any way contemporary. I think they took our pre-market bid in part because we said explicitly we *love* all the woodwork and won’t touch it.
As much a I’m not a great fan of knotty pine, I’d take it over Hospital Room in a heartbeat.
If you go on the Little Tikes webpage, all the usual color schemes are still there.
I still prefer the old style Cozy Coupe, though.
Those bastards didn’t make this for kids. This was made for adults who are so poor the only car they can afford is a Cozy Coupe. It’s just like those cat food ads. Somewhere there’s a grown man trying to squeeze into a beige Cozy Coupe thinking to himself, “I’m not humiliating myself! Look at how upscale this one is!”
“Do you find something comical about my appearance when I am driving my automobile?”
I wish this was the case, but really it’s for DINK snobs who had a whoopsie moment, and now don’t want their happy accident to affect their aesthetic.
They already own two white German luxury SUVs, have a fully Scandanavia Minimalist interior, and are happy to discuss the various shades of white for hours.
NO
EFFING
WAY
I have a brand new granddaughter and there’s not a snowball’s chance in Tucson I’m letting her waste her imagination on something as LITERALLY MILK milquetoast as this. Who the FUCK is in charge at Little Tikes? What the FUCK do they have against fun?
GodDAMMIT. CRACK PIPE.
As someone who doesn’t have a SINGLE WHITE WALL IN HIS HOUSE(closets notwithstanding), this is utter horseshit. Granted, my house also looks like it’s an oddities museum mixed up with a live concert venue, so maybe my take isn’t as valid.
But still, FUCK BORING BEIGE BABY BULLSHIT.
Upvoted for “oddities museum”, the truly timeless decor.
Sad Beige, now in Childhood flavor!
Brought to you by the same people who buy an old house and paint all the gorgeous woodwork any shade of Big Box white.
Torch writing like he’s been possessed by Adrian. I’m here for it. This is brilliant. And best of all, he’s absolutely correct!
What, no black rims? Especially since the not-tire part of the wheels on the classic bright Cozy Coupe are true white and the ones on the Sad Beige model are…sad beige.
I see through their evil plan. Waiting in the wings are Cozy Coupe Colors, a line of markers with the only ink formula that will adhere to this particular plastic. This will be the upsell.
On the other hand, this is a bitchin blank canvas for a kickass crayon Rush mural.
‘- swooping down from the moon, I know!
It’s Geddy’s jet!’
I agree; most kids are going to see this as a toy to cover with paint, markers, crayons, and stickers. And thankfully the classic red Cozy Coupe is still in production. Good aunts/uncles/grandparents/other close grownups can compensate by providing lots of gifts of colourful nonsense, preferably stickers that are hard to take off. If they’re so inclined, of course.
To probably misquote The Boondocks- “You know what I would do if somebody tried to pee on me? I’d move.”
So move, people. Move away from this. I redid a kitchen and the (now ex) wife wanted white cabinets, white walls, white counter, white floors and I spent every ounce of my marital capital to get butcherblock countertops.
Also, this is one of Jason’s best pieces in a long legacy of amazing pieces.
They’re just training our kids to accept monochrome vehicles. Just like adults used to say we had colorful vehicles, now older kids can say the same thing to toddlers.
The real reason: pigments cost money. It’s brilliant really; convince the public that non colored materials are the height of good taste and intelligence, then charge a higher price for it while reducing its material cost.
It’s all hgtv and sherwin williams fault. And the waco yahoo hgtv gave a platform to who puts trash on walls with open shelves and 4 shades of white.
Little Tykes is missing the boat on this one they should be following automotive fashion and doing up the cozy coupe in the latest automotive grey. Or as I describe it primer grey then slap a coat of clear on it. The car companies probably change extra for that shit and it saves them money in the paint booth win win. Dad says look kiddo your car is just as ugly as daddys.
Well they stopped making the tug boat sand boxes a long time ago…
I had primer grey cars YEARS before it was cool. Just saying.
That crayon image has a ridiculous number of high quality band names in it.
“Good evening Cleveland! We are Summer Mayo Scelera!”
Utah kid names.
Sclera Ashleyghy Mckyynzee.
Any adult that buys this soulless abomination for a child should instead be forced to drive it themselves everywhere in the house.
The shades of white sorta look like those outdoor, free-range Cozy Coupes that you see in the backyards of daycare centers that are sun-faded from decades of UV exposure…
Sun-faded Cozy Coupes in redneck country backyard abandonment still hold their colors better than many modern cars’ base/clearcoat systems.
I find the smile much too distracting, as well as the lurid red of the tongue which violates the palette that I have striven to cultivate by bleaching everything that enters my home (including my anus). I would much prefer it to wear an expression of calm neutrality, as encouraging children to smile might lead to laughter and then possibly even tomfoolery. Now excuse me while I submit a request to Lego that they release all of their Duplo sets exclusively in greyscale.
Why no, I don’t have children, why do you ask?
Just don’t put the decals on.
First they take away the manuals…
How the hell are you supposed to find your Cozy Coupe in the
parking lotliving room now?I’m pretty sure an automatic Cozy Coupe is called a Power Wheels.
I like it, it is blank canvas. My grandchildren would love it. I do not really stick to the “keep away from children” thing as I should, the house is full of acrylic paints, pens and more, I have crocheted lampshades, tie died vintage lace curtains and worse.
A six and five months and two days (important stuff) has suggested that it needs horns and purkle glow in the bark paint. I think she might be right.
I for one hope it catches on, that way maybe the Smart Car folks will stop making Red and Yellow replicas. Just saying
why would we want a reduction in cozy coupe painted Smart cars? That never gets old and indicates a level of whimsy particularly uncommon in adults.
eh, for me, I would rather they just left the white ones white. they can upbadge to the Cozy Coupe I suppose.
I know a guy who did that with a Think City.