Alright since you cant fucking figure it out on your own.

Here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLs8_R3bMmo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqinqsK-LZc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jr-fBW-Sq0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcGiMDVV5-E

In short During the AMF years, AMF focused on introducing a lot of products that were not core nature to harley.

During this era, Harley, under the guide of willie g mad the biggest strides towards the customization, and aftermarket nature of harley davidson. Once Harley had bought itself back from AMF after AMF systemtically destroyed it's quality, Harley rebuilt its brand on the new AMF and customization.

What came next is why you're wrong about the 1970s.

Harley in the 1980s would establish it's heritage and custom culture around the brand, the lifestyle angle. Instead of partisipating in the Speed Wars. Harley chose to appeal to a lifestyle and culture angle instead of innovating in speed and performance.

This is where harley made their first move that would come to be a source of the issue they have now. The aging customer base that liked their bikes and bought into the lifestyle that put Harley in the predicament they are in now, this is where that began.

This was only made worse for harley when HD's Fat Boy motorcycle became the face of american motorcycles thanks to Terminator 2.

Once this happened demand for HD bikes skyrocketed, and Harley capitalized on it hard.

Further pushing them away from participating in the speed wars. Harley double down on the style and lifestyle aspects of motorcycles.

This is when their prices sky rocketed because HD couldnt make enough motorcycles to meet demand, so people would pay any price they could.

Meanwhile Japanese and Italian companies were competing against each other and revolutionizing racing and performance bikes.

The overpricing, and heritage lifestyle issue that harley is struggling from now did not start in the 70s. It began in the late 80s, was supercharged and double down on in the 90s, and in the 2000s the revival of the custom chopper and bike building made the problem even worse. For a do 2 and half decades Harley rode on the success of a heritage style.

But those people who cared about that stuff got older, AND they didnt raise motorcyclists.

Instead they rode their bikes, told their kids not too because it was dangerous, and Harley was hit hard by the economic crash and average age of rider going up for their market.

It has nothing to do with the 70s. They long recovered from that and rode on the success of their new marketing for decades after the 70s, and it only started biting them in the ass because they refused to do much innovation during the 90s and 2000s.

All of the issues that you consider "toxic brand" were spun in the 80s and 90s, and rode into the 2000s, because of the rising success of the marketing strategy.