Sheldon's article about Japanese bikes covers the outsourced Schwinns. I don't know where it got started that Schwinn had any Giant-made bikes in the 70's and 80's, and I've never heard it from an authoritative source. That said, their Japanese bikes(Le Tour) were mid level quality, Schwinn made crappy(Varsity) to high(Paramount) right here in the states.Their downhill slide in the nineties might be when they started getting Taiwan bikes, but I've never heard of them getting outsourced labor from anyone besides Osaka, Japan(Panasoni) before then. Japanese bikes are underappreciated gems, in my book. I enjoy refurbishing them.