The thread continues to have a good mix of why we bought bikes in the past with why we buy bikes today.


What happened is that the Japanese are very, very good at copying ideas.
I am pretty sure that they got the management principles from USA-based academic research and papers published on the subject of Quality Assurance (QA).
In contrast, the UK was much slower to take up the concepts of QA which in themselves have developed enormously since the 1970s (for all I know such concepts will be ongoing).
Along the way, these principles dealt with the metallurgy issues that are mentioned in other posts.

So, a Brit bike and an Indian manufactured bike with a Brit badge.
That's a nice mix.

[QUOTE=Jake;493947]
Anyway give me a bike designed and built in a European factory
[/QUOTE
These days, it is very difficult to achieve this; probably impossible. My 1990s TTR600 was badged as a Yamaha and assembled in Italy (the "Belgado" bike).

Triumph have a very large proportion of their manufacturing in Thailand.

On the car front, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, to name just 3 big Jap outfits, employ 1000s of UK workers and 1000s more across other countries.

Oh yes, the Chinese are coming; this was very noticeable at the NEC show last November.
I also noticed it during a visit to the French national air show in 1997.

The list is endless, and the reason is that business has no boundaries - it is totally international: where the profits go and the overall "morality" of this (the ethics) is a whole different ball game.

__________________
Dave