Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

It's easy to look back and think of might have been if different choices had been made.  The good news, at least in the motor cycle space, is that the past is reinvented for the future. In the car world we have the new retro focused Mini, Fiat 500 and Beatle. Over in bike land recreations of Norton, Brough superior and Triumph are available.  Here is a quick then and now with the modern link under the title

Norton

The classic

The Modern Norton

Triumph

A jubilee edition Bonneville

Modern interpretation 

Brough Superior 

The classic

The modern interpretation

 Using any excuse for a few retro photos of bikes I never had :-) Here is Laverda Jota pic similar to one that lived on the wall back home. Displaced eventually by Souixsie Souix ( but that is another story)

Photos via bikeexif,  Google and Autotrader.