Design
Ogle Design claim to have designed the Chopper for Raleigh. They actually only produced concept art for the Raleigh design department headed by Alan Oakley; only the seat and spoke protector were taken up. The final design of the Chopper was submitted by Oakley's department to management and production started in 1968. Raleigh built a copy of the chopper-like Schwinn Sting-Ray they called the Rodeo, which was launched in the United States in 1966. It was not a success, but its design clearly was a forerunner of the Chopper. This lack of success prompted Raleigh to send its chief designer, Alan Oakley, to America to investigate first hand the United States youth market. Oakley saw that a new bike was required, in a very non-Schwinn style. On the flight home Oakley penciled the first outlines of what would become the Chopper onto the back of an airmail envelope.
The popularity of the Chopper also led to a range of smaller bikes following a similar design theme. These included the Raleigh Chipper, Tomahawk, Budgie and Chippy models, aimed at younger riders.
Read more about this topic: Raleigh Chopper
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.”
—Miguel De Cervantes (1547–1616)
“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life ... for fear that I should get some of his good done to me,—some of its virus mingled with my blood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.”
—Freeman Dyson (b. 1923)