"In December 1977, Volvo in Gothenburg wanted to produce minicars and investigated conditions and designs. In January 1978, it proposed plastic composite materials in many parts of the car. Other products were considered, the bicycle one of them. In October 1978, a grant of SEK 54,000 from the Swedish National Board for Technical Development financed a prototype plastic bicycle. In February 1980, a rideable bicycle was demonstrated to the state-owned bank and a loan of SEK 6 million granted. In March 1980, Itera Development Center AB was born to design, produce, and market composite-material bicycles. In September 1981, the first bicycles were shown to retailers and the press. Nationwide advertising was scheduled for spring 1982. The bikes were delivered unassembled with tools provided in the box. In autumn 1981, more than 100,000 Swedes indicated they were interested. In February 1982, production started at Vilhelmina. However, sales were slow and the news media lost interest. The fact that not every box contained every part to assemble a bicycle frustrated many customers. Production ended in 1985. Approximately 30000 ITERA bicycles were produced. The stock was sold to the West Indies where they became popular as rust is a problem with metal bicycles." Via (in Swedish)
2 kommentarer:
Once I saw this post I went as far is to search for ITERAS for sale. All I really found was criticism, enough to quite quickly kill the brief infatuation
Yeah, I was tempted as well, but the few ones for sale In Sweden are sold as collectors items and not really recommended for use. They're pretty cheap though. They're really heavy, weigh around 20kg.
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