The mind behind many a great British design
SIR – Your obituary (January 10) of the radical industrial designer Tom Karen discusses his many contraptions, including Marble Run and the Reliant Scimitar cars, as well as the Raleigh Chopper, which he is credited with inventing.
His workshop was a remarkable place. It was full of small pieces of art, including small-scale, threedimensional penguins (which marched at the flick of a switch) and space rockets. But the most striking item was a burnished vermilion Chopper.
Raised in Czechoslovakia, Karen watched the Nazis march into Wenceslas Square. His family moved to Britain and he studied at Loughborough College. When hostilities ceased in 1945, the rest of his family returned to Brno.
He anglicised his surname, became a British citizen and swept through the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, before taking up a post in Dagenham with Ford. He later moved to Cambridge, where he worked on some designs that never did catch on, at least not at the time.
When he was asked about his most treasured design, his answer was reportedly always the same: “My next one.”
Emeritus Professor Kit Thompson North Ferriby, East Yorkshire