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The Bond Bug has that classic 70's look - but
it owes its existence to the dream of one key designer,
Tom Karen.
Tom Karen was born in Vienna but spent his early years childhood years in Czechoslovakia.
One Grandfather was an industrialist and the other was a highly regarded portrait
painter. With a gene pool like this, it is not surprising that Tom Karen became
a highly successful industrial designer.
He left Czechoslovakia in 1939 and arrived in the UK in 1942, via Belgium, France,
Spain and Portugal. He studied Aeronautical Engineering at Loughborough College
and, for the next 10 years, he worked in the aircraft industry. By this time,
he recognised that he was much more interested in design than mathematics, so
he went to study industrial design in London.
Tom already had a clear idea of what his dream car design would be, a compact
three-wheeler. His thinking was that such a car would cost less to road tax;
should be inexpensive
because it had fewer parts and a simpler construction; would have low fuel consumption
and little tyre wear; and it should cost less to insure than a bigger car.
As a young designer, he also wanted it to look good and have "girl appeal",
but nothing like that was available at the time. So being a designer, Tom set
to work with a friend and built a complete body for his dream three-wheeler.
This project was shelved as his friend left university and Tom began a four-year
spell with Ford's Design Department in 1955.
Three years later
he won a national car design competition with his radical concept called the ‘Rascal’.
He then worked briefly for David Ogle before moving to Hotpoint. His enthusiasm
for creating the best possible product led him to leave this company prematurely.
A new washing machine was about to be approved for production but Tom felt it
could be made more functional, cheaper to tool and manufacture and could look
better as well. His Design Manager was not receptive to these opinions. Tom drew
up his idea and had a full-size model made in the fortnight that his Manager
was on holiday. The Hotpoint management was delighted with his design, which
went into production and subsequently won a Design Award. However, by this time
(as you might have guessed), Tom had already moved on to join Phillips where
he set up their studio for White Goods in London.
In 1962, Tom was invited to take charge of Ogle Design
following the death of David Ogle in a car accident. He
was Managing Director and Chief Designer from then until
1999, during which time he was personally responsible for
a wide range of innovative products. These included:
The Bush TR130, the UK best selling radio in the 60s
The Reliant Scimitar GTE
The Raleigh Chopper
Tom had kept his three-wheeled dream alive and in 1963 the opportunity Tom had
been waiting for arose as Ogle Design commenced its association with Reliant.
In 1963 and 1964 Tom carried out design studies for Reliant and produced scale
models of two three-wheelers, which he hoped would one day, replace the very
successful Regal range.
And the rest of the story, well you just need to look at the production
story section
to see the results of this work. |
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