sd5782 

I’ve asked myself the same question and came to the conclusion that the 80s may be the best trade off of new manufacturing techniques and product ideas combined with the still available old world skilled labor.

I’ve come to this from other interests; motorcycles, and spring powered pellet guns.

In the case of motorcycles and reflecting my age perspective of 64 years old, the 60s saw lots of various ideas on everything, even 2 stroke engines and various engine configurations. The 70s saw some of these ideas falling by the wayside, while others got more refined. The 80s pretty much sorted things out, and there was lots less interesting variety but the UJM ie; universal Japanese motorcycle was king.

With my spring guns, the same happened, except in the 80s there was still blued steel and wood and very little plastic. An aside here that goes into cars and motorcycles and spring guns was spring steel alloys of the 80s. Engines could turn some more modern rpm. Pellet rifles shot over 800fps. We still had old guys in the factories though knowing how to put craftsmanship into these items.

Steel alloy development surely played a great part of the sorting out of quality bikes as the 60s turned into the 70s. My 64 Frejus doesn’t even have a steel alloy sticker. By the 70s and surely the 80s, it was bragging rights.

I am new into this hobby, but I would bet that the more traditional purists appreciated the 50s, 60s, and 70s for the variety of “ideas”, even though probably 75% of them fell by the wayside too. So yes, from a purely analytical viewpoint, the 80s were perhaps the most functionally best for steel bikes in general, but that eliminates the devilish fun of all the dead ends and occasional successes we encounter with some older stuff.