best model year for a particular brand?

while in the garage tidying up this afternoon i looked over at my explosif and though, yep i defo got the best year model (in my opinion) 1992.

it got me thinking, which brand and what year was the best for a brand.

for example, for me, kona 1992

marin, not sure what year but it was when they were zolatone with flouro bar/stem/fork 1991?

gt i think their best year was around 97

then cannondale i think 98/99

what do you guys think? best model year for a particular brand?

For me...

Marin 1990-91 the zolatone neon era.

GT 1990-92 splatter paint era.

Alpinestars 1991-92 Estay era.

I think many brands glory days were around 1990-1993 most seemed to loose there way from 1994-97

Just my opinion though!

Doug

yeah, defo neon zolatone on the marins, being honest i'm talking looks here not performance or tubing etc.

here's 1991/2/3 marins to show what i mean, the zolatone/neon looks great but i think best at the front end

Not so keen on the 92's myself not zolatone but satin finish aswell, but do like the 93 in particular the Eldridge you showed...Oh and here's my '90 Eldridge lighter zolatone but still sweet!

so was the 90 and 91 near as dammit the same colour scheme? i googled these images but they are mostly from this website, my 1991 pic looks almost the same as your 1990

Yeah the differences were that in 1991 they darkened the zolatone, colour coded the decals to the fork colour and introduced the "afterburner" chainstay which had a larger diameter...see my Team pic from 1991...

i knew about the afterburner stays but never noticed the sticker differences and i thought the lighter/darker shades of zolatone were actually just slight variations as opposed to the model year, learn something new everyday here!

Happy to help...Marins are my thing!

Funny you mention your 92 kona... I think of the 1997 kona range and think it was perfect, even the hahanna looked great.

well i suppose i like the 1992 because that it what i have but also i think it's from the neatest range, i sort of look at this stuff through the eyes of a dealer being ex bike trade, meaning what would look good in the shop.

for example the marins, imagine them in a row in 1990/1, say 10 bikes, all look mostly similar but for the colour of the forks etc, they looked great and also once sold anyone who was into bikes knew which model you had from a distance because of the colour of that fork, if they saw flouro yellow it was the palisades(?) if they saw bright orange it was the pine mountain. quite a good marketing thing really.

it's the same with the Konas to a certain extent, the paint styles were similar through the range so they looked good in the shops. i was never keen on the splatter paint though, the 90/91 paint schemes were simple, the 93 was ok, the fade was across the range, the 94's i thought were boring, then the thumbs up logo i thought was a bit rubbish then some of them were like hot rod car paint flame style and hawaiian/tropical which i thought were awful, anyway here's some pics, these give an idea of the paint styles