The Great 2012 Thonet Bike Hoax.

This past week it’s been hard to escape images of a bentwood bike purporting to have been created by a London based artist for German furniture manufacturer Thonet.

We choose not to run the story. Something about it troubled us from the beginning.

The fact that only computer generated, rendered, images were available, for example.

Plus knowing what we know about Thonet, it just didn’t make sense. Didn’t feel like Thonet. Wasn’t right.

And now the confirmation from Frankenberg, it’s all a hoax. And not one Thonet or their PR agency were involved in.

See legal press for details, as it were.

That Thonet may have produced a bentwood bike was of course conceivable.

Marcel Breuer, as we know from our interview with Mathias Remmele, was, allegedly, inspired to construct his metal tube furniture by glancing down at his handlebars while riding his bike through Dessau. A bentwood bike would therefore be a nice way of paying tribute to the two most important aspects the Thonet story.

The Thonet chrome sledge S333 was an adrenaline-fuelled beast of a construction, and there must be motivation in Frankenberg to create a bike that offers an equally unique and memorable ride.

And the Thonet Museum in Frankenberg is home to several delightful wheeled objects from the turn of the century, including if we remember correctly, a bath chair. Or possibly a pram. Certainly has wheels.

But no. Thonet have not produced a bike. Nor are they planning one.

They have however promised us something very special at the forthcoming Orgatec 2012.

We’ll keep you updated.

And in general if you want facts about the contemporary furniture industry and not pretty images, probably better to stick with us…..

The S 333 Thonet sledge by Holger Lange. Not an object for the faint-hearted.