I'll expand a bit. Vista was a brand of an organization with a name like National Bicycle Dealers of America or something like that. Certain distributors (Service Cycle in the NYC area) sold the bikes, both Columbia made and Japanese. In earlier days- say 1975, you could get amazing deals as a dealer if you bought a whole shipping container of the Japanese bikes early in the season. The problem was they were branded Vista and you couldn't fill in the stock in case you ordered the wrong sizes. They were well made and allowed you to clobber your competitors on price if you chose. If I'm not mistaken similar to that Vista Elite, with alloy rims and decent components could be sold for $160! That compared very well with a $200 Fuji.
Joe Bender-Zanoni
Little Falls, NJ
> << Ebay has a 1984 Vista Elite bike with Araya 631 tubing and Shimano
> 600 drive train. Anyone ever hear of a
> Vista? ...........
>
http://ebay.com/
> >>
>
> "Vista" was the brand used by Columbia bikes ior their "Bike shop"
> clients (as contrasted to the reast of their product line which was
> sold to department stores.) They has clunky welded bikes and a few
> models imported from Japan. This eBay bike is one of the latter......
>
> Dale Brown
> Greensboro, NC USA