Lot 2412

Itera/Volvo, Sweden, three speed blue plastic design bike. The design team who created the Itera bike were first brought together in 1977 with the intention of producing a minicar. The team comprised: Lars Samuelsson, product managers at the Volvo Car Division, Claes Nordenstam, graphic designer at Swedish Television, and Jan Olsson, sales manager for all Volvo products in the People's Republic of China and North Korea. They began to look at plastic composite materials to replace steel in many parts of the car. The team looked at what other products could be made using composite materials and focus on the bicycle. A prototype of a ridable all-plastic bike was created in February 1980. The look of the bike moved away from traditional bicycle design because of the constraints of the manufacturing processes used: standard injection moulding could not produce a tubular frame. The wheels could be made in a single process in minutes without the need to manually tighten each spoke like on a standard bike. Unfortunatley, the Itera was not a success for a number of reasons. It was relatively expensive to buy. It was too stiff where it needed some flexibility and parts broke. The handlebars were perceived as not stiff enough making riders feel insecure. It is relatively heavy where it was expected to be lighter than a steel bike and the styling was unconventional -various conditions-