Tom Karen, one of Britain’s most original industrial designers, who has died aged 96, will be remembered for colourful, headline-stealing products that caught the spirit of their age, including the Raleigh Chopper, the Bond Bug, Marble Run and the Reliant Scimitar GTE. In Karen’s case, the age was the fecund 1960s propelled optimistically into the economically challenged 70s, the decade, in the popular imagination, that style forgot.
The radical Chopper children’s bike, launched in 1969, rescued Raleigh from financial disaster. Now any 10-year-old could ride the cul-de-sacs of Britain like Peter Fonda astride his Easy Rider “Captain America” Harley-Davidson. With its high-set handlebars, outsize rear wheel, wedge-shaped frame, bright colours – Golden Yellow, Flamboyant Green and Brilliant Orange – long padded backrest saddle, central gear lever, dummy disc brake and motorcycle-style stand, it represented a world removed from that of staid sit-up-and-beg postwar children’s bikes. Raleigh’s chief international designer, Alan Oakley, also claimed credit for its design, having sketched an early image of the bike on a flight home from a research trip to the US.
