I am certainly no expert. So hopefully someone can help me out here.

From what I see of the two Bob Jacksons in this thread the clearance up front is pretty lax. In my mind I am comparing this to my 1983 Kenevans which has about an 1/4th of an inch between the tire and down tube.

This is something I see on modern track bikes pretty often. So my question is this; why do older frames have such ridiculous clearance up front between the wheel and down tube while newer models don’t? at least don’t look like they do.