Image: lambchops, 30 September 2007, Flickr Creative Commons
The results are in. The car that Fox News proclaimed to be the best selling model in the US in none other than that depicted above. With 457,000 units sold in 2008, this car’s sales topped those of the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord and that’s all. In the ’90s this human driven car outsold both the Accord and Ford Taurus.
Numbers like these place the car in the top-20 best-selling models of all time, having sold more than 10 million units in its 30-year history. This also lands the car a place next to historically significant automobiles at the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland.
Now, the US isn’t the only one that has caught onto this fad. In Denmark, this car has also become an inevitable part of all kindergartens and playgrounds, where its yellow and orange colours make it visible from a distance. Even a one year old toddler can drive this car and, at an early age, children can use it to practise their hand eye coordination and incorporate the sense of freedom from automobility into their developing nervous systems.
But, getting back to the question about sustainability – is it sustainable? One thing is for sure, it does not pollute when moving. Of course, there is the issue of the energy used and toxins generated in its production, which I am not in any way qualified to answer – but it is made of manufactured plastic and I am pretty sure it is not created with natural colours. I guess one could argue that it is in fact sustainable; it provides good exercise and several kids could take turns pushing each other around the playground in it.
Well, my kids at least always found it great fun and I clearly remember the fights about whose turn it was to be in the driver’s seat. But I have to reflect on how such toys influence our kids and how they get them to start enjoying and loving cars at such an early stage. This car came off the production line in 1979 at a time when the discourse about cars as the most important means of transportation were getting firmly established. Maybe today we might consider trying to get our kids to love more sustainable means of transportation.
Now, does this mean that I want to ban one of our kids most preferred toys? Not really. But I will still argue that it’s important to reflect on how we teach future generations how to be sustainable. With this, I wish everybody a great summer and I will return with more blogs in early august.