Why the dearth of top-of-line Japanese C&V?
 

Specifically I'm thinking about the larger, full range manufacturers like Fuji. There seems to be so few 70s Fuji Professionals for sale or being discussed on BF vs. Raleigh Professionals. Also Shogun (technically not Japanese but made in Japan)- it's impossible to find an example of their flagship model 3000. Lesser model Fujis and Shoguns seem relatively common. Were buyers of high end bikes in 70s/early 80s just not interested in Japanese made bikes? Share your thoughts please.

We are secretly hoarding them. You're too late.

Racers as well as racer wanna-bees with money insisted on Campagnolo well into the 80's, and Campag-equipped Japanese bikes like the top-end Lotus I came across were made in small numbers.

It's about like Campag-equipped French bikes.

There were however a seemingly good number of Centurion Equippe bikes made, which were Campag-equipped using Japanese-built frames made with Italian tubing.


As for the Superbe and Dura-Ace bikes like the Fuji Pro, Bridgestone RB1, SR Triathlon/Maxima and Miyata Team, these seem to turn up at least occasionally and I've bought one example of each for small money over the years.

I see mid-high level japanese bikes fairly often. Around here I have recently seen a couple tange prestige frames, an echelon that I was late for, vintage specialized allez, the 1985 raleigh competition I picked up, centurion ironmans, and more.
Once I know what I am looking at it's easy to find mid-high level bikes. Especially if you are okay with some non-pristine variants.

There is a rough schwinn voyageur nearby but I really don't need more road bikes.
I find good deals on lesser known euro brands about as frequently as japanese brands.

You can always look further too. I used to do that with rare motorcycles since I was spending enough where the gas was a minimal expense.
The hunt is my favorite part.

Sometime in the mid-1970's, one of the strongest local racers in southern Connecticut showed up at a race with a "high-end" Japanese bike. Shocking. Couldn't get my head around it. You deliberately bought a Japanese bike? To race on?

Then as now, a few brand names dominated the enthusiast bike market in the U.S.: Schwinn, Raleigh, Peugeot, maybe one or two others. Small bike shops carried Japanese bikes, not by choice, but because the bigger shops had the big-name brands sewn up.

A large proportion of the C&V people here got into high-performance bikes in the late '70's or thereafter, by which time the better Japanese bikes and components had won respect, so the idea that Japanese bikes were more or less scorned must seem incomprehensible to them. All I can say is that, from 1964 (when I started racing) until the day that guy hit the starting line with his Japanese bike (probably a Fuji, but I'm not sure), I'd never seen anything other than English, French, Italian, and American (Schwinn Paramount, Bill Boston, etc.) bikes at races.

As a mechanic in the 70's and 80's I was amazed at the quality of the first Fuji shipments we received. We carried the Fuji Finest as our top end Japanese bike. Quite frankly, it was by far the best value in high end bicycles at the time. Plus, it featured SunTour derailleurs which were far superior to anything coming out of Europe, regardless of price. At every price point, Fuji was a better-quality bike than anything we had from the U.S. or Europe.

I too find it quite rare to find the high-end Japanese bikes now. I do have a Fuji Finest from 1978 in its original spec. that I will be restoring later this year.

I think Trakhak hit the nail on the head. The Japanese bikes faced a lot of prejudice from the racing crowd. Americans were so used to seeing the English, French, and Italian brands on the race course, the Japanese companies took a while to establish a reputation as an equal. And by then the bike boom was winding down, so there just weren't as many bikes sold. They did much better with mid-range bikes during the bike boom because dealers were scrambling to find product wherever they could. The average American consumer just wanted a ten-speed at a good price and wasn't concerned about winning races or having a European pedigree.

A riding buddy has a Fuji Pro. He bought it new when working in a bike shop/Fuji dealer back in the day, sold it off at some point, then managed to reacquire it many years later. I believe @ScottRyder has or had one.

Fwiw, I worked in a shop in the late 80s that carried Nishiki as our main brand, but we never had the highest end models. That’s not what our customer base was looking for.

In America in the 70s, nothing Japanese was high end. I remember hearing a lot of jap ______and jap ______ from the “adults” as indicating low quality. :(

I've been lucky to find a couple of nice higher end Japanese bikes.
The 1982 Araya Road 821 is an early Dura Ace bike and I found it 20 miles from me.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...39cbf1f859.jpg

My 83 Pro Miyata came from another BF member, it has Superbe Pro derailleurs, but not the full Suntour group.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...bf5e3bb21e.jpg

I had a fabulous Fuji Professional years ago, but sadly it was too small. For me the main reason I don't have one, is I've never came across one at a decent price that struck my fancy. I like to have a Shogun Samuri with the Hellenic stays, or something more unusual like a Marukin, or Takara.

"81 Professional Super Record. It was a fabulous bike but just a bit too small despite the 130mm stem. The bike, sans wheels, was given to me by a customer for doing such a fabulous job building a new Camerotti CycloCross bike for him.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...022ae79a1c.jpg


I sold it to a member in New England and I think it then went a member in Illinois who made it beautiful with close to original kit.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ea6469fd57.jpg

Because my Opus III is going to the grave with me. ;)

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...2d96e0ebd4.jpg


Although.... I did see a Miyata 914 listed locally yesterday:
https://classifieds.ksl.com/listing/75041931

But for the most part I agree. It seems like I never see something these high end Japanese bikes for sale locally which is the main reason I've never had one.

Miyata Pro for sale Atlanta GA
 

As stated, the numbers of top end ones imported were probably few. People weren’t ready for a high quality Japanese bike. Like cars, they accepted mid quality ones and then eventually we saw more higher end ones until finally we have Lexus and Acura.

Yup! 3 Fuji Design Series, 2 Professionals, 1 Fuji Newest, 1 Professional Super Record, 1 CP Titanium, 1 Titanium with Century Record.

Don't forget that there are also the very nice Rivendells that were made in Japan, such as the Saluki, Atlantis, and Ram.

Still have it, and no plans for it to go anywhere. The only negative things I can say about it are that I wish it were just a bit bigger, and that saddle was awful, but it matches so well.

I remember our Earth Action Council's guidance on bicycle buying ca. 1970. They recommended European road bikes between about $100 and $150 (Peugeot UO-8 and Raleigh Super Course were two favorites), while advising against Japanese bikes at that price point. "Some Japanese models, such as the American Eagle Semi-Pro, may be good, but in general you have no assurance of high quality." As others have mentioned in the thread, the quality of Japanese bikes rose dramatically during the 1970s, across all price points. At the top end, those with big money still insisted mostly on Italian bikes with Campag. components.

When I started getting into C&V, I found that I was more interested in "off the beaten path" bikes, rather than the much more popular Italian frames with Campy. So one of my first acquisitions was a 1982 Lotus Supreme. Lotus was an American importer, who had Tsunoda braze their frames and then kitted them out with Shimano, Ukai, Kashimax, SR, and other high quality Japanese components.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f7267c0518.jpg

Speaking of "saddle was awful", another Japanese bike I got was also a Lotus, a 1981 Classique, with Shimano 600 Arabesque, and a Kashimax saddle that was the worst saddle I've ever experienced. It magically avoided putting any pressure on the sit bones by putting it everywhere else! I completed ONE ride of about 10 or so miles on it and that was it.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...dbabd36a9c.jpg

When I got my first light weight bike in the seventies I decided on a Kabuki Diamond Formula. It was a very light bike , compared to my old Varsity . It wasn’t cheap but also nothing really special with standard SunTour mech and DiaCompe brakes. I still have it although since switching to Campagnolo components years ago. It really is a great bike , I did Eroica California in 2016 on this bike.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...6c4190539.jpeg
Kabuki Diamond Formula

In my experience, the first Japanese bikes that got respect from the racing crowd was 3rensho, and that was only on the track at first. By that time, Gibby Hatton and others had done kerin racing in Japan and were riding 3renshos. If they were good enough for the likes of them, they were fine for the rest of us. And with the yen dollar exchange rate at the time, they were a bargain vs the European or even American frames. But they never had the distribution that the European frames had or the local loyalty that American builders had.

The Equipe was made in Italy and only had three Campagnolo parts.

I love those forks!

Other than Fuji, Centurion and Miyata both imported high-end Japanese bikes into the USA. The coffee table book “Japanese Steel” that came out a few years ago does a great job of cataloging and detailing top of the line Japanese imports of the 70s - 90s.

it’s ironic to me that in Japan at that time, there were many extremely talented builders making handmade custom frames for the domestic market. For the most part these were never imported into the USA. Notable exceptions were 3Rensho and Zunow. Other luminaries like Nagasawa, Kalavinka (Tanabe), and Vivalo (Kusaka) only became known and respected in the USA in the 2000s when keirin bikes became popular stateside as part of the fixie revival.

Beyond these familiar names, there’s dozens of other Japanese builders who did outstanding work, as good or better than anything coming out of Italy. Sadly they are generally unknown in the States or only appreciated in niche circles. Nowadays many of these builders have either retired, passed away, or are in their last years.

I think the appreciation for European bikes led shops around the USA to import handmade frames from Italy and France, but overlooked the Japanese handmade market because they just weren’t going to appeal to American cyclists like the European brands did. Also, the language barrier probably didn’t help.

Beautiful bike bikes pictured above! I have seen a few Univega Superlights here on BF. I think they were the top model, and with Columbus SL frame tubes and Ofmega cranks. Univega probably had a larger share of the market in general tho, and like Shogun not a Japanese marque.

Someone here posted pages from 1985 Cyclist Mag Buyers Guide which listed the Shogun 3000 equiped whith NR (derailleurs only). I wonder if the Campag equiped Fuji Pro SR was more popular than the standard Pro. I dont recall seeing many examples of the Pro SR either.