Hmmm...I don't know. A guy I work with used to work at the Huffy factory I think in Oklahoma or somewhere like that and he described the assembly line of usually native american workers wielding TIG welders building frames as fast as they could with stringent quotas to meet. And we know what Huffy turned out. And I'm pretty sure theirs are built in China or Taiwan now. Maybe with robotics you could do it (the same guy told me they had a robotic frame welding machine but nobody knew how to program it or keep it running so they didn't use it - this was in the 80's I think). Actually I don't really think it would matter. The Taiwanese make a quality product when that is what the specs call for. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of the recent Bianchi steel frames made of Reynolds 631 tubing in their Taiwan facility other than the ugly TIG welding although even those are becoming hard to find in the lineup.

As for your 1980 Bianchi Super Leggera, well that's relative. There are those (a lot of them are over on the CR list ) who would argue that Bianchis are nothing special. I favor Bottecchias and abuse is heeped upon them regularly. How do we decide which bike to copy? Now that would start an arguement. I vote for the early 90's Bottecchia TSX bikes in red/white and chrome. Then again, you could just buy a brand new Cinelli SuperCorsa frame build with Columbus Neuron tubing and save yourself a whole lot of trouble.

Check out the SuperCorsa in the Cinelli catalog: http://www.cinelli.it/EN/pdf/catalog...lette_2008.pdf