That VISTA is a good bike. I would lose the drilled brake levers. I don't trust them as the lever would tend to break in use after they were five years old. After 40+ years, I wouldn't want to have part of the lever crack and break off while riding it. It wouldn't cause you problems unless you were hauling down a steep hill full blast in a triathlon or something and needed to brake. Other than that if the lever cracked, you'd likely have enough with using the other lever for rear wheel to ride home from anywhere if you didn't challenge any downhill runs.
No kidding, I would seriously install vintage non drilled levers , pirated from some other ancient bicycle. Those were just a dumb factory idea to look cool and to pretend to show prospective 10 speed buyers that this Vista model was concerned with reducing overall weight. Lots of idiots seemed to find that those stupid drilled levers sealed the deal for them , in buying such a bicycle.
Other than that, it is a pretty good old bike with Japanese Maeda SUNTOUR stuff which is far superior to anything from Campagnolo, Simplex, or Huret from that time.
I think that the folks that marketed VISTA bicycles simply copied ( stole) the names from automobiles of distinction in the same way that many American bike manufacturers of the fifties and sixties copied (stole) the names of popular automobiles.
ROLLS-ROYCE produced the SILVER SHADOW from 1966 through 1980. It had to be the most popular Rolls-Royce of all time, during that era, as more Rolls-Royces were produced and sold during those years than during any other before or since then.
I may be wrong but Lamborghini made a model called the Islero, in the mid to late sixties, perhaps Islena was a name VISTA marketers thought would sound like an Italian sports car's name, who knows.
I seem to recall that the first VISTA models marketed were targeted at the Varsity and dept store 10 speed buyers. Their ads seemed to suggest that you'd get Schwinn like durability & quality at nearly the ordinary typical dept store 10 speed's pricing.
They purposely designed a white Schwinn like headbadge that wasn't oval but said V I S T A in vertical fashion in a badge of approximately the same size as the iconic Schwinn oval white badge with SCHWINN in black letters.
Unfortunately, most VISTA bicycles came in factory paint colors that were mostly bland and unmemorable. I often wondered if the marketers of VISTA saved money and found it more cost effective, or just got a better deal on bland, basic colors that weren't very snazzy. Perhaps the marketers of VISTA just lacked style & imagination in ability to choose paint coloring, but those folks marketing the VISTA line of bikes did do an excellent job of putting together very decent overall bikes for the price that they sold for.
Many various brands did subscribe to that fad with the drilled levers being visibly indicative of a higher line, more sporty, lighter bike. All of those alloy drilled levers will BREAK. It is beyond ridiculous because the weight savings from those holes is really about nothing. It does look cool, but they don't improve braking in any way, but they almost guarantee breaking at sometime while you're riding it, and that is never too fun. REPLACE THOSE WITH NON DRILLED LEVERS BEFORE YOU DO ANY SERIOUSLY FAST RIDING OF THE BICYCLE DOWN HILLS, OR BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO RIDE IT IN A SPRINT TRIATHLON JUST FOR THE HECK OF RIDING A NEAT OLD BASIC VINTAGE BIKE JUST TO SHOW IT CAN BE DONE WITH RESPECTABLE RESULTS IF YOU'RE IN FIT ATHLETIC SHAPE FOR YOUR AGE. You'll likely get more attention from being the person who rode the really antique bike to a respectable showing, than the attention that many folks riding bikes with five thousand dollar wheelsets will get.
