Italy, France and the UK have given the world a lot of very nice bikes, so have many other countries.
in recent times, its harder to distinguish how this works as Italy still have a lot of Brands but don't do so many 'in house', the Uk is more resurgent on Hand-made and France is still quite avant-garde with the likes of Look, Time, Gitane not being as strong as it was for a few examples
that said, what is your ideal bike? for me it is something like a Pinarello with C-Record or perhaps a cromovelato Wilier, or, a nice Vintage Gitane, or something like a Roberts, but then i am personally biased!.
if you had to buy a supercar, where would it come from? high end bikes are a little like this (in my daft opinion). they do the same thing but with a different focus
look at Colnago's and tell me they do not make beautiful bikes, look at Enigma, Roberts, many others and tell me they aren't slightly understated but very capable and focussed, and look at Time etc and say they aren't the bleeding edge of development.
I used to work at a Bentley garage, which had a sideline in selling other stuff - recently they had a murcielago, a carrera GT and assorted bentleys in there, they are all very great cars in different ways yet you can see their heritage in their bloodline and yet, like the respective bikes, they can all be very alluring in their own ways.
this is like bikes
and Italian bikes, especially retro ones, for me, just have that right mix of design, function and *ahem* marque. But, i like them all and its a close run thing
The ONE bike i still want, is a Montello in smoked chrome, with panto, one-off C-Record in smoked Pinarello writ groupset, the best bike I ever saw.
I'll get me anorak...