I don’t think the Chopper was ever really that cool at the time – just a retro marketing job. The Chipper and Tommahawk were awesome because you had them when you were 6 and 8 and then something that looked like an American motorcycle with playing cards in the rear wheels was not cool because we didn’t know what cool was but definitely what we wanted.
I was a kid in the 70s early 80s but by the time you were big enough to ride a chopper most kids I knew ( me included) wanted a ‘proper’ racing bike with drops and 5 gears. The really rich kids had ‘gasp’ 10 gears!
Funnily enough choppers were mainly for girls and kids that never actually cycled anywhere
like others have said if you wanted to dick about in the woods or do jumps on the rec over your mates all laying down like Evil Kenivel then a Grifter was where it was at.