After the 1974 oil crisis, a group of Swedish engineers pursued a bicycle built from fibre-reinforced plastic composite. Their idea concerned more than frame material: it also changed how the bicycle would be manufactured and delivered. By around 1980, the Itera Development Center was developing an injection-moulded bicycle for a wider market.
The first bicycles reached buyers in 1982 as kits to assemble at home, much like flat-pack furniture. The promise met practical difficulties. Some boxes did not contain every part needed for assembly, plastic components were prone to breaking, and replacements were hard to obtain. For a rider, the appeal of an unusual material could not compensate for a bicycle that was difficult to finish or repair.
Production ended in 1985 after roughly 30,000 examples had been made. Remaining stock was later sold in the Caribbean, where a plastic bicycle had an attraction in places where metal cycles faced rust. Itera remains a useful design lesson: choosing a new material is only one part of making a successful product. Parts supply, straightforward assembly and durability in daily use matter just as much as the shape of the frame.