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The Indian Motorcycle companies have had a roller coaster ride like no other motorcycle brand. This subsequently gives it an unusual history.
You will be familiar with it's early history, so I think its best to start with it's modern history and work back. In amongst my take on Indian Motorcycle's history, there will be some unique information that is rarely found in the history books.
1999 To Present - Gilroy and Kings Mountain
Indian 1955 to 1977 - Imported Indians
The Indian That Might Have Been MK2
1999 to present - Gilroy and Kings Mountain Era.
The Indian Motorcycle Company of America was formed from a merger of nine companies. The manufacturing factory was set up in Gilroy California.The first models rolled off the factory floor, using an S&S engine. It is reported that this was an "OFF THE SHELF" engine, which I believe to be incorrect. This engine has a sound of it's own, which would suggest a different stroke and crank. These Chief models used the infamous Valanced front and rear fenders.
They would introduce the Spirit and Scout Models, which would also use the S&S engines until 2003.
The Indian Chief would take on radical changes and were introduced to the public in 2002. This model had an engine designed by the Indian Motorcycle Company which was a 100 cubic inch (1640cc) with whats known as the "Bottlecap" rocker covers. The barrels were round and tapered down to the engine block. You get the impression it is similar to the old radial aircraft engines. The huge amount of torque is delivered to a 5 speed transmission made by Revtech, and off to the rear wheel via a belt.
The bike is a longer and heavier machine compared to it's earlier models and also it's rival American V Twin motorcycles. The new cad designed frame had a square tube backbone and a swingarm with a rear shock cantilever attached. The rear suspension used a German made mono shock that is located under the seat.
It is often heard that the Indian is a Harley copy. Well, my answer to that is "Not a chance".
Unfortunately, by the end of 2003, one of the companies major investors backed out and Indian Motorcycle Company of America was placed into the hands of it's administrators.
There was a small amout of 2004 motorcycles made near the end of 2003 for the year about to come.
Kings Mountain 2006 - present.
Lets start with who owns Indian Motorcycle Company. Indian has had many difficulties with it's management since around the beginning of the 1st World War.
Why is this new company any different?
Who is Stellican?
Stellican is a London private equity firm - Stellican is run by Mr Stephen Julius. Stellican purchased the Indian Motorcycle Interlectual Property on 20th July of 2006 and annouced they would bring the Indian Motorcycle Company back to life again.
Now Indian Motorcycles is owned by a highly experienced and profitable company.
Looking at Stellican's history, one can feel very confident that they will turn the Indian Brand into one that will be around for some time and well into the future. Stellican has to it's credit, a long list of other companies it has also revived, and turned into profitable companies and these include,
Chris Craft Boats - a US producer of premium boats.
Vickers Plc of Cantieri Riva s.p.a. - an Italian producer of luxury motor yachts.
Vicenza Calcio S.p.A. - a leading Italian football team in the Italian Football League.
La Casera, Spains largest domestic soft drink producer (with other investors).
Maccorp Italiana - Italy's Largest Chain of Bureaux de Change "Exact Change".
Sarema - Italians second largest Cash Register Company.
Sweda Group - Italy's largest producer of cash registers.
At the Head of Stellican Team, you have two highly accredited leaders.
Stephen Julius - Chairman - He obtained a First Class Honours Degree in Classics from Magdalen College, Oxford, he won a Kennedy Scholarship to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and received an MBA from Harvard Business School , where he was a Fulbright Scholar.
Steven Heese- President - Currently serves as President and CEO of Chris Craft Corporation.
He graduated magna cum laude from Tulane University with a B.S. in management, with a concentration in Accounting and Computer Science, and received an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Mr Heese lived in Australia and Asia between 1989 to 1998. Mr Heese was the Managing Director of Erico International Corporation.
Now knowing a little about the company who is financing the start up of Indian Motorcycles, and guiding them with proven business strategies, I personally have 100% confidence and I hope you do also.
The Indian Motorcycle Company.
I travelled to the Indian's Official opening and a couple of things stood out.
They were like a family. They even had family members of the staff in on the day helping. Now that is a trait like from the Springfield days.
They all have pride in where they work and what they are achieving. They are making History.
Chris Bernauer - General Manager.
Chris " We have an outstanding team of Industry veterans throughout the company. We build our motorcycles with a craftsmen mentality with an engrained passion to build high quality motorcycles. Our number one priority is to create a beautiful motorcycle with a high level of quality which will become the benchmark for the motorcycle industry"
"An eleven-year veteran of Harley-Davidson at such high echelon posts as Powertrain Developtment Engineer and Sportster Platform Director, Chris, whos been riding since he was ten and wishes he had started younger, has a bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the university of Wisconsin Madison and a MBA from the Kellogg school of Management at Northwestern University" - Indian Motorcycle webpage - "The Executive Team".
The Company is now situated at Kings Mountain - Charlotte North Carolina.
The New Motorcycles - see www.indianmotorcycle.com
"The new Indian Chief motorcycles are produced in limited numbers with the focus of outstanding quality, performance and exclusivity. The limited production 2009 Chief features a redesigned 105cu in (1720cc) Powerplus V-Twin powertrain with electronic closed loop sequential port fuel injection. A new charging system provides increased capacity for the EFI.
Engine cyclinders are Nikasil plated, eliminating the need for cast liners. A new crankshaft eliminates "scissoring". The exhaust system is a new design with interchangable 3-way catalytic converter and oxygen sensors. All body parts are e-coated and the frame and swingarm are e-coated and powder coated for enhanced corrosion protection.
A six speed baker transmission delivers power through the belt to a 15 inch rear wheel. Stopping is achieved via Brembo 2-piston calipers, with 10 inch dual rotors at the front. Standard 5 US gallon tank helps extend cruising range. Seats are all leather and built to exacting specifications.
Indian plans to have 50 dealerships within the US by the end of 2011, 14 of which have already been named. The flagship store, Indian Motorcycle Charlotte, located in Lowell, North Carolina held its Grand Opening on the 4th October 2008" - Wikipedia.
From 1955 to 1970, Royal Enfield motorcycles were painted red and marketed in the USA as Indian Motorcycles by the Brock House Corporation, who had aquired the the rights to the Indian name after it went under in 1953. Gerard Kelly, of manual fame, was involved, but Americans were not impressed by the badge engineering, and the venture was unsuccessful. The largest Enfield "Indian" was a 700cc. The marketing agreement expired in 1960, and from 1961, Royal Enfields were available in the US, still through Kelly, but under their own name, up until Kell's death in 1970.
Manufacture of all products was halted in 1953. Brockhouse Engineering and Royal Enfield bikes were imported from England and badged and sold as Indians through the rest of the 1950's. After this Indian name passed to the company that imported Matchless motorcycle into the US, however it did not attach the name to any motorcycles, and it went into liquidation in 1962.
From the 1960's entrepreneur Floyd Clymer began using the Indian name, apparently without purchasing it from the last known legitimate trademark holder. He attached it to imported motorcycles, commisioned to Italian ex-pilot and engineer Leopoldo Tartarini, owner of Italjet Moto, to manufacture Minarelli-engined 50cc minibikes under the Indian Papoose name. These were so successful that Clymer also commissioned Tartarini to build full sized Indian Motorcycles based on the Italjet Grifon design, but fitted firstly with Royal Enfield Interceptor 750cc parallel twin engines, then with Velocette 500cc single-cylinder Thruxton engines.
After Clymers death in 1970 his widow sold the alleged Indian Trademark to Los Angeles attorney Alan Newman, who continued to import minicycles made by Italjet, and later manufactured in a wholly owned assembly plant in Taipei (Taiwan). Several models with engine displacement between 50cc and 175cc were produced, mostly fitted with two stroke engines made either by Italjet or Franco Morini, but the fortunes of this venture didn't last long. By 1975 sales were dwindling, and in January 1977 the company was declared bankrupt." Wikipedia.
1901 to 1953 - Springfield Era.
I will quote from Jerry Hatfield, notably one of the best Indian Motorcycle Historians, within this era.
It is a transcript from the dvd "Indian Motorcycle Memories" which can be found in our gift section.
Before I do so, I would like to share some details not commonly know around 1949.
The Indian that Might Have Been MK2. Indian Vincent and Vindian prototypes
I am fortunate to have a copy of a letter from Ralph Rogers - (Indian Motorcycles), to Phillip Vincent - (Vincent and HRD motorcycles).
This was shared to me by a friend who lives in Melbourne Australia - Phil Pilgram.
Phil has a very interesting story about the Indian-Vincent, as he now owns the original prototype.
Phil Pilgrim writes - "This story has two beginnings, one in 1949 and one in 1970. We shall start in 1949.
Ralp Rogers, manager of the Indian factory in Springfield was met by Philip Vincent in view to Vincent Motorcycles being distributed in the USA by Indian Motocycles. Apparently the two got along very well and in fact a joint proposition was put forward that possibly a Vincent could be made to suit more American tastes. This unbeknown to Vincent would help pull Indian out of a failing sales slump due to their lack of developing an O.H.V. engine to compete with Harley Davidson on more equal terms. For Vincent this would give access to a massive dealer network in which to sell his product including the supply of engine units. Unfortunately for Vincent, he never realised that Indian at this time was close to being broke. Both men seemed happy with this agreement. It was decided two prototype be engineered, one in a standard Indian Chief frame, the Vindian, which much has been written about and one to be Vincent framed, the Indian-Vincent, with electrics, converted to left hand gearshift. Not many people realise that this model even existed.
In 1949 a crate arrived at Stevenage from Springfield containing a complete Chief. Also included were the relevant bits to make the Indian-Vincent. Phil Irving (an Australian born engineneer, with Vincent) mentions in his autobiography that a machine was taken from the service department F10AB/1/3492 which in fact is a misprint as this was not made till late 1950. The machine used was F10AB/1/2492 and this is easy to prove from the original photos which thanks to todays technology can read the engine number quite clearly. As Phil mentions in his autobiography this eventually became the machine with a Blacknell sidecar attached that he returned to Australia within 1949. It was easy to track the Australian registered number (VIC 53148) and confirm the engine number & I now have a copy of Phil's original registration certificate dated 07/03/50 (US - 03/07/1950).
The story on the Vindian has been well documented and the photo of Phil Irving astride this machine are common. After the photos were taken the machine was stripped, the engine returned to its Vincent frame and assembled with parts Indian supplied from an Indian vertical twin. This included a Delco generator and regulator, park light for the front guard off a early version not the famous Indian head type, tailight assembly, base mount chrome G.E headlight, ignition/light switch, stop switch, horn and dipswitch buttons. The machine F10AB/1/2492 in fact was a series C touring Rapide, so was already fitted with touring mudguards, crashbars wide handlebars and 3.50 x 19 front wheel and 4.00 x 18 rear wheel. As a 1949 model it had a plain motor. This was the transition period between H.R.D and Vincent trademarks and the motor was H.R.D. Ground off crankcases were being used in the mean time so it had a later diecast kick start cover and Vincent timing cover fitted. Surprisingly plain rocker caps were fitted because these were not available at the time. Another strange thing was a handful of engines were manually stamped Vincent, as in America the name and place of origin had to be cast or stamped on the crankcases as well as the manufacturer. An example of this is shown in January MPH 2002. These handful of engines existed between numbers 2000 & 3000 which again proves Phil Irving's printing error as 3492 was a cast Vincent crankcase, as shown in the original pictures.
The proposed orders from Indian were 50 Vindians and 20 Indian-Vincents a week. This was a fairly good deal for Vincent but unfortunately never came to fruition. Vincent had in fact bought and ordered the material to produce these machines but never recieved an order from the cash strapped Indian 
corporation. This put Vincent in a bad position, so bad they were placed in the hands orf the receiver, E.C. Baillie. Meanwhile the photos were taken of the Indian-Vincent. It was close to standard specs but it was not road tested as thoroughly as the Vindian, after the orders were cancelled. Philip Vincent gave orders that the Chief be returned to the Indian Factory complete with it's original Indian engine and the extra pieces supplied for the Indian-Vincent. There is speculation that Indian did in fact fit a Vincent engine back in this frame, as at this time Indian started distributing Vincents in America and therefore would have been capable of doing this. In fact this machine still exists and it is now part of the Du Pont family museum, previous owners of the Indian Motocycle Company.
Phil Irving left England in October 1949 and brought with him the Indian-Vincent which had been returned to original specs. Phil eventually traded the outfit for a Vauxhall Wyvern car in 1953 and lost contact with the motorcycle.
1970 and On.
In 1970, Philip Vincent wrote an article for Motorcycle Sport Quarterly, an American Magazine, titled "The Indian That Might Have Been". I bought this magazine as I was interested in Vincents and like most people were repulsed by the photo of the Vindian. I wondered why the Indian-Vincent had never been produced. Little of the technical specs were available but detailed shots of both sides of the two machines were included.
In 2001 I bought a Vincent motorcycle in pieces that had been raced in it's earlier years. It was basically all there and I remember thinking how much trouble someone must have gone to make up a die to stamp VINCENT on the crankcases as it was an exellent job. I was also amazed that the pictures in Motorcycle Sport Quarterly of the Indian-Vincent's crankcase were stamped in the same manner. Months later in an article in M.P.H., the Vincent Owners Club magazine, I discovered that it was in fact a factory modification used on engines numbered between 2000-3000.
I contacted Robin Vincent-Day, Philip Vincent's son-in-law as he was advertising a Indian-Vincent tank decal and I asked him to send a photo. I also asked if he could send me any information about this little known Vincent. Robin was very helpful and in fact sent me not only the information but also four previously unpublished photos of the left hand and front shots of the Indian-Vincent. At this time, I casually mentioned the way the Vincent crankcase was stamped in the photos was the same as the machine I had. Could it be possibly be the same one? I told him of the numbers on my engine and he then sent me blow-ups of the crankcase numbers in the photos. We were utterly amazed when they turned out to be the same number. I remember running out to the garage as the enlarged photo came up on my computer screen checking and rechecking that the numbers were in fact the same. I am indebted to Robin and Deidre Vincent-Day for the help in confirming the history of my bike.
This news put me into a dilemma as to how to restore the bike. I had two options. I could build, a Indian-Vincent or restore it to Phil Irving's original outfit of a touring Rapide with Blacknell sidecar. I decided Phil's outfit would look just like any other Vincent with a Blacknell sidecar attached so this left the only option, to restore this piece of Vincent history.
When I was about half way through the restoration, the gear change conversion had proved to be tricky. The brake swap was achieved by using a comet brake cable and the generator conversion by jack-shaft is strange. The ignition/light switch mounted in the centre of the handlebars is very weird considering it is a Lucas magneto, the taillight is a real bolt-on after thought and I can see why those lugs were cast but never used on the girdraulics for the headlight, this is the lug used on the Indian application. I had to find a Blacksmith to fabricate the mount for the headlight. The horn mounts on the engine where the coil fits on a Series D. Pictures show the battery as a block of wood as apparently Indian never sent one of their batteries to Vincent. I have fitted the large Indian battery with the modified battery carrier.
Now you may ask would it have saved Indian. Well it would have had to have more developtment on the gearchange. The bike never had a formal road test like the Vindian because it did not change gears very well as the factory engineered it, the trouble to make it a R/hand rear brake to suit Indian Owners was not worth all the effort. The gearchange lever had about 5" of lever movement throughout it's arc, now I have halved this with rose joints instead of clevi's that Vincent originally used. The original lash-up the factory used for the generator in the factory photos show the generator belt loose on the pulleys so I fitted a modern multi groove belt which works very well. The electrical system is now 12 volt instead of 6 volt. As previously mentioned the factory fitted a block of wood which was neither voltage.
I think Indian did the right thing in the end by just importing standard Vincents. The Indian-Vincent would have been still unfamiliar to the traditional Chief/Scout owner.
Possibly for Vincent it was easier to sell complete machines which would have been cheaper to produce than a hybrid of both manufacturers, but Vincent would have benifited more than Indian overall." Phil Pilgrim.
1901 to 1953 - Springfield Era.
An Interview with Jerry Hatfield
Read the full transcript of an interview with Motorcycle Historian, Jerry Hatfield for Indian Motorcycle Memories.
Indian Bicycling Roots
Indian began with bicycles. The first popular bicycles were the ones with the big wheel in front, the so called high wheels. George Hendee was a champion amateur bicycle racer in the high wheels for three years. He entered 309 races and won 302 of them. The safety bicycles with two equal sized wheels came onto the scene in the 1890's and bicycle racing became popular to promote the sale of bicycles. Mr Hendee ran a bicycle company in Springfield, MA and in the process, crossed paths with Mr Hedstrom who was also a bicycle racer.
And that was the beginning of it, the proverbial back of an envelope or handshake deal was how they got started. Hendee had the connections in Springfield and in the Connecticut Valley. With his reputation as a bicyclist, he was able to promote the venture and raise a lot of the capital, sell stock. Hedstrom was the engineering genius, he was the guy able to make the machines with his own hands..
The Prototype
After George Hendee and Oscar Hedstrom decided to build a road-going model, it only took Mr Hedstrom about 4 to 5 months to complete the first prototype. It was brought to Springfield on May 30, 1901 and it was demonstrated in the next couple of days before large and larger crowds. It passed scrutiny very well, it started every time and ran very smoothly. It would run slowly which was a very important feature at the time for motorcycles. And it would speed up to the exhilarating heights of 30mph. So it was extremely successful as its debut.
The interesting thing to me about the 1901 original prototype Indian was that it was not a very large machine. It was not very large because it was exquisitely built and it was perfectly designed. Nothing was too big or too small anywhere in it, in terms of moving parts or in terms of visible parts on the outside frame or fender or whatever. Other machines that had been built up until that time were pretty much large and clumsy devices. In comparison, the 1901 Indian prototype and the early production models were like Swiss watches. They were extremely well made and very well thought out. Really the person that designed that, Mr Hedstrom, was half engineer and half artist.
You look at the aspects of that design and there were unique features of it that set it entirely apart from the design of the times. The operation of the valve gear was something that was different about Indian engines. All engines have two valves per cylinder, one would naturally think that to raise each one of those valves, you would need some sort of device for a two cyclinder engine, for example, you would have four of those things. We call them "cams". They are egg shaped things and when the lumpy part of the cam rolls around it raises the valve. Hedstrom was able to design an engine that had half as many (cams) as you thought it would need. And he did that by having kind of scissor mechanism that floated along the edge of this egg shaped thing. So you had one cam but it operated, through this scissor mechanism, two valves. It was a way of getting the same work done with fewer parts which is really good engineering. If you can do the same job as well or even better, in the case of the Indian motorcycle, with fewer parts you're better off.
Early Production
The company started out very small, on one floor of a building in Springfield and built only a few dozen machines a year for a couple of years. They contracted out their engine work to a company in the Midwest because they didn't have the facilities in Springfield at that time. By 1908, they had grown sufficiently to do all of the construction. From that point on, all of the motorcycles except for the tyres and a few miscellaneous parts were made completely in Springfield. By 1904, they made about 600 machines. They doubled that in 1905 and they continued to grow well until 1913 when over 32000 Indian motorcycles left the Indian factory in Springfield. This would be all time peak. It was a very profitable operation, made over a million dollars that year. In fact, Indian had at that time become the worlds leading motorcycle producer.
Motorcycling in the "Old Days"
When motorcycles 1st started, they were, in concept at least, bicycles with motors. And a lot of people peddled bicycles not just for pleasure but even to go to work in the cities. The device that Mr Hedstrom designed, the Indian Motorcycle, looked very much like a conventional bicycle, a user friendly sort of thing. It did not meet up with a lot of sales resistance. It did not look frightening or mysterious. Motorcycling in the earliest days, was really like easy bicycling, you could go a little faster and put out a lot less effort.
At the turning of the century, there weren't many roads that were paved. Once you hit the city limits of a place like Springfield, Boston or Chicago you were in for some pretty tough going, especially the farther you got away from the city. You were lucky if you had what today we call a good gravel road. In many cases, you had just a couple of ruts in the road that carriages or automobiles had made. And you had the challenging task, if you were on a single track like a motorcycle, of staying in one or the other of those ruts or maybe riding in between. It was really a filthy chore in an automobile, let alone a motorcycle.
Clothing at the time was drastic in the sense you had full body coverage, never mind the heat if it was in the summer, because you couln't get that dust all over you. So you had the big coats and women wore big bonnets. Motorcyclists wore goggles and caps and highly collared shirts and leggings and knee high boots because there was always something oily or messy going on down below. And it was better to get it on your boots than on your trousers. So just suiting up to go traveling on a public road was an act of adventure I'd say.
There were no national road systems or numbered highways. There were no free maps given out by the oil companies for sale at the local Texaco station, there were no local Texaco station. The 1st drive in station was in 1913 in Pittsburgh. So a lot of things we taken for granted when traveling by automobile or motorcycle, just weren't there. There were no motels until in the late 20's. Any kind of travel on roads between cities was a daring exercise. There were log books that were for sale by various companies. They would tell you to go to a big tall, five story, red brick building then turn left and go on a mile and a quarter until you come to this large oak tree on the left then take the fork on the right. This is how you might go from say Boston to Springfield. These are kind of the directions you would get.
The Impact of Automobiles
When Henry Ford began to mass produce the Model T in 1914, the price went down every year when as the car got better. Finally it got to a point that a motorcycle with a sidecar was more expensive than a new car. Obviously you could not appeal to the public at large to buy large numbers of motorcycles for practical transportation when they could get something better for that purpose, and get it cheaper and get an extra wheel under it which made it a loss less likely to get into accidents. So the motorcycle became just about exclusively a sporting device other than a few commercial users, around town package deliveries and so forth.
Indian's Engineering Firsts.
Indian, over the years, was either 1st or the 1st manufacturer of significance to adopt a number of features. Electric starting for the Indian in 1914 was the 1st in the world. Rear suspension on the Indian was not the first but certainly was the 1st motorcycle of stature and of any significant sales to have rear suspension. That came about in 1913. The 1st footboards on American motorcycles and probably in the world were in 1912. As a consequence of Indian's victory in the Isle of Mann international race, they came out with what they called a "tourist trophy" model that had a starting mechanism which was one of the earlist and these footboards which was the 1st in the industry. I think they probably were 1st to use some kind of twist grip control. On the earliest engines, the speed was controlled by adjusting the status of the ignition system.You would do what is called Retard the ignition, make the spark occur later if you wanted to slow down. And you would make the spark occur faster by twisting the grip towards you if you wanted to go faster and that was the right handgrip. So the very 1st Indians, the speed was controlled by the right hand. The odd thing is when they decided to add a throttle, they already, had the ignition control on the right so they put the throttle on the left. Over the years, the throttle became the speed governing mechanism. Indian never bothered to move the throttle. So they went from right hand control of the speed with the ignition to left hand control by the throttle and they just kept it that way all the years running. They were the only motorcycle in the world with a left hand throttle.
The clutch and primary drive system, the system that links up the engine and transmission, that was a superior setup on the Indian because the chain that connected the engine with the transmission, that was a superior setup on the Indian because the chain that connected the engine with the transmission was in this cast aluminium housing and there was a quantity of oil in there so the chain could never run dry. And that particular chain didn't drip all over the driveway or road and was quieter than the Harley set up. The Indian transmission and clutch were very, very good. The machines were very reliable. The Indian design starting in 1920 and especially after 1922 emphasized what they call the side valve Indian. This was an engine that had all major moving parts enclosed. Harley Davidsons and the Indians prior to that had about half of the valve mechanisms setting up on top of the cyclinders and working those valves up and down. You could see all of the little fingers out there and they would gather dust and oil. Oil and dust together is a grinding compound so all of those moving parts that were exposed wore rapidly and were messy. Indian did not have that after 1920 because all of that stuff was inside where it belongs, was well lubricated and did not mix with dust to create a grinding compound. Indian engines were quieter mechanically for that reason than the Harley Davidsons up until Harley Davidson flattered Indian a great deal in the 30's by switching over to the design Indian had been using for a decade prior to that. So Indian was a pace setter and innovator in 2 cyclinder engine design during the 1920's and 30's.
The first motorcycle race happened shortly after the second motorcycle was built. It was just kind of a natural thing. George Hendee and Oscar Hedstrom both having been bicycle racers, were naturally inclined to enjoy that aspect of motorcycling. But beyond that, motorcycle racing and also endurance runs were very important in the early days of the industry to demonstrate the reliability and the technical, up-to-date features of your machines. So therefore racing became more and more important in the motorcycle industry.
Racing and motorcycle endurance runs got into high gear around 1907-8. Between then and 1920, the factories did a lot of promoting and the riders did a lot of promoting too. They kind of remind me of today's wrestlers in that sense, the plethora of nicknames. We had, these are all Indian riders, we had Silver Boyd, Specks Warner, Mile-a-minute Murphy, Millionaire Marty Graves, and one of my favourites, Cannonball Baker, and later on, in the 30's, Iron Man Ed Kretz. It doesn't seem that Harley riders had nicknames for whatever reason, you can draw your own conclusions.
Board track racing, as so many other aspects of motorcycling, grew out of bicycling. The first board tracks were used for bicycle racing; they were called velodromes. They are still used in the Olympics today. Somebody got the idea of racing motorcycles on these tracks and then somebody got the idea of making those tracks a little better for motorcycles, making them a little longer in circumference and making the corners more steeply banked. At one time there were about two dozen of what they called motordromes spread across the United States. They were in Philadelphia, Denver, Brooklyn, Tacoma, Los Angeles and Dallas. They were all over the country. These tracks were very short, typically one quarter of a mile in length or less. In fact they had some they called six lap tracks - 1/6 of a mile per lap, five lap tracks - 1/5 mile per lap. These were banked about 60 degrees in the corners.
They were very exciting spectacles, particularly racing at night. A lot of these motordrome racers were conducted at amusement parks. And people went to these things at night. Well you had all of this fire coming out of the engines and blue flames. And all the popping and all the noise, and the rumble of the boards and the smell of oil and gasoline and the color of the motorcycles. It was really quite a spectacle. Nothing like it had been seen until, perhaps, wrestling reached television in the 40's. You had nicknames, a lot of promotion and probably a few rigged contests in there. It was quite a draw between 1909 - 1913, but during that time, this kind of racing fell out of favor because increasingly there were bad accidents. In fact, in late 1912 there were 8 people killed in Newark, NJ. Six spectators and two riders in an accident. That made the front page of the New York Times, probably the only time in history that motorcycling has made the front page. So motodromes just about fell out of sight a year or so after that. In fact, I think by 1915, the governing body of motorcycling wouldn't even recognize those racers as official contests any longer.
In 1911, Indian finished first, second, third, fifth and sixth at the late Isle of Man tourist trophy races held just off the coast of England. At the time, this was the premiere motorcycle road race. This greatly benifited Indian in terms of both sales and reputation throughout the world. The design features of the Indian that helped win that victory were shortly incorporated in British and European motorcycles. The win helped solidify Indian's deserved reputation in motorcycle design. The season of 1911 had many other high points and together with other years, the cumulative records of Indian were outstanding. In fact, at the end of 1911, the Federation of American Motorcyclists published their records for 126 different categories of different distances that were ridden, different hourly increments, different mileages that were made over these increments. Of those 126 records, Indian owned 126. You can't get any better than that. After that, Indian had their way until about 1915, when Harley Davidson got into racing for the 1st time. Thereafter it was pretty much nip and tuck between the two greatest rivals in American motorcycling.
Not only was racing important to Indian and to the other motorcycling companies, but long distance record setting was of increasing importance. The idea being to convince the public that if Cannonball Baker can ride his motorcycle across the United States, then you could ride yours across Oklahoma without being too frightened. I think that was part of the motivation for getting into the transcontinental records. They also had a popular, what they called a "three flag" event where riders would start out in Canada north of the border and ride throughout Washington, Oregon and California and then cross over into the Mexican border. So there were three flag records, there were transcontinental records and Indian held most of these records.
Without any particular strategic purpose, I'm sure that George Hendee and Oscar Hedstrom decided one day "Sure, let's go racing.' But when they did think about it, they realised that racing was important to a very young motorcycle company to establish it's reputation for the quality of it's products, its reliability, and its power and speed. The power and the speed part became increasingly more emphasized and the reliability less so because after about 1909-1910, people began to agree that these vehicles were reliable. You didn't have to prove that, you had to prove they were fast.
Now there was a paradox in all this. Many people realized that motorcycle racing as it got faster and more dangerous and there were more accidents, was probably not good for the industry. If you were trying to convince people to ride motorcycles instead of driving automobiles, it was probably not a good thing to read on the front page of the New York Times, that 8 people got killed in yesterday's motorcycle race in Newark, NJ. But while they realized it was bad for the industry, they also realized, and this is the parodox, that racing was absolutely critical for the survival of the handful of companies that were trying to make a go of it. There were about 50 or 75 companies at one point making motorcycles in the United States and by the late teens, it was down to just a handful of players including Indian, Harley Davidson and a few others. Although the automobile market had skyrocketed and was growing by leaps and bounds every year, overall motorcycle sales had leveled off. What was happening was a battle for survival. And racing was important to make sure your company was one of those survivors and not like the Flying Merkel or the Cyclone or any of others that were good motorcycles but just didn't cut the market place and racing and died off.
Racing became even more pronounced and more emphasized even as the industry became smaller and smaller. And accidents could be quite serious and so motorcycle racing which at first was dealt with respectfully by the sporting section of the Los Angeles Times for example, it gradually fell out of favor. By the 1920's there might be a small report in the Sunday paper about yesterday's race. But it would be small indeed and probably no photographs. The whole sport of motorcycle racing went from stature as significant as baseball down to a triviality by the 1920's.
Motorcycles started out as did automobiles as something that the affluent were involved with, doctors, lawyers, proffesional people, because these were expensive devices. There were university motorcycling clubs especially in England but in the United States as well. So you were not looked down upon in any way if you were a motorcyclist in the earliest years, around 1905-8.
Indian had started out with I'm sure, the idea that they were going to produce the personal transportation device for the entire nation because automobiles were so terrifically expensive. So if they could make something affordable that was just as good as the bicycle, but you did not get tired legs, they probably had the idea that they could take over the personal transportation scheme. But Henry Ford undid that and so the motorcycle never took off like the automobile. And it evolved, in fact, into a sporting device.
What kind of people rode motorcycles? Well, they were just about as diverse as any other category of people. They were rich people and poor people and everything in between. If I was to draw a distinction between motorcyclists and other people, I would say that motorcyclists had a yearning for adventure. And the motorcycle seemed to provide that than automobiles.. There was a little more uncertainty of getting from point A to point B on a motorcycle. In fact, you could even brag that "Hey! I made it from Philadelphia to Chicago and only had one flat or whatever problems and I overcame that." That was not true to the same extent as in the automobile, you didn't expect to have as many problems with the automobile.
At first women were not prominently involved in motorcycling. It was basically a mans game and it was billed as such. Advertisements talked about red-blooded men preferred Indian. Women weren't mentioned at all. The proper place for a woman in the earliest years of motorcycling was in the sidecar. And that was a great attraction of the sidecare to be able to bring your babe along. But in the 1930's, Indian realized that "Hey sales are hard enough, why don't we sell some motorcycles to lady riders?" So they began to emphasize, and Harley to lesser extent, lady riders. Indian even went to the point where they built a model, The junior Scout, it had various names over the years, it was a small 2 cylinder machine, about 100 pounds lighter than any other Indian. And it was lower in the saddle, and shorter and easier to handle than any other Indian. It was advertised quite often with a picture of a lovely lady sitting in the saddle. And there were a few women who rode these small Indians and comparable Harley's in the 1930's. Never a lot, but every sale mattered.
An interesting thing about motorcycles is that they're such an emotional device. By that I mean, if you were into motorcycling as a sport you developed strong friendships among other riders you knew best. And it turns out the riders you knew best were the people who were riding the same brand of motorcycles as you did because the club tended to be organized by one or the other motorcycle shop in a town. By the 1920's, they tended to be two or three motorcycle shops in a town. That meant two or three motorcycle clubs. Usually there was an Indian club, a Harley Davidson Club and there might have been a club organized around the local Excelsior/Henderson shop.
So what happened was, if you rode an Indian and you were a member of that club, you ran across your buddies at the Indian shop where you had the club meetings, or where you just run over to get some spare parts. These are the people you knew best. From the ranks of these people came your good friendships. And even today, in 1996, the ripples of that effect are still speading out. I have friends that have been friends from 70 odd years, or 60 or what ever, and those friendships started out at the Indian shop. If one or the other guys had riden a Harley they wouldn't be playing poker today.
Motorcycles caught the attention of the police departments almost immediately. It was about 1904 that the New York city purchased it's first Indian Motorcycle and other cities weren't far behind in purchasing motorcycles. Motorcycles were maneuverable, they did'nt take up a lot of space. They were certainly fast enough to keep up with the automobiles of the era. They could get in and out of tight places if there was congestion in traffic or if there was a bad accident you could ride around it on the sidewalk or whatever with your trusty motorcycle.. And so they became the vehicle of choice for traffic control right away. Well before World War 1, motorcycles were prominent in all the major cities for patrol activities. This was an era, incidentally, before the two way radio was perfected. And so if you needed to chase a bank robber or traffic violator, a motorcycle was a good way to that. A motorcycle was a good vehicle to hide behind a tree or billboard if you wanted to have your speed trap set-up. It was a lot easier to hide than an automobile
Motorcycles had other advantages over horses, they did not leave behind certain problems. Indian liked to brag about the left hand throttle. That was a neat thing, because with a left hand throttle, you could twirl your trusty Smith and Wesson from your holster and shoot at whoever. They ran a lot of adds with the guy's hand on the left throttle and the gun in the right hand. I don't know if they shot their revolvers that often from a moving motorcycle even though it made a good copy. I think the nice thing about the left hand throttle, a cop could get to his cigarettes pretty easy with his right hand. Indian was the only motorcycle to have the left hand throttle so they made the most of it and said it was intrinsically better.
If your department started out with Indians by crack you had to have a left hand throttle and that went into the specs which was really just a convenient way to make sure Harley didn't get in the police business if you didn't want them to get it because they didn't have a left hand throttle. Once in a while they put one on just to see if they could get a contract in New York or some Indian city. But Indian was pretty much on their own on that.
In police business, there were a lot of politics. Some cities once they bought a certain brand would stay with that forever. In other cases, like Los Angeles they would go through period of years where they'd get Indians for a few years then Harley. Politics played a great role in this service. Money was passed under that table by both Indian and Harley Davidson. One of the tricks was to get the specifications written your way. Specifications were actually written that said the motorcycle had to be Indian Red, left hand throttle, and they would describe any specifications or features such as the cast aluminium cover for the front chain I talked about. They would put these in the specifications and effectively make it illegal to purchase a Harley Davidson. Harley Davidson would do the same thing. They would specify certain features of theirs in the city purchasing contract to make sure they got the contract. These were underhanded ways of, while that telling the public that yes, there was a free and open competition for these police motorcycles, actually you were greasing the skids either for Springfield or Milwaukee to make sure your favourite brand if you were the dealer, got the business.
In WW1 the motorcycle is an important courier vehicle. This was before radios were perfected and so a lot of messages were just that, words on paper that had to be carried. You had all these stories about messages being intercepted and all that. There were great plots in movies and books. But the fact is messages were hand carried and a better way to do that was by motorcycles because they could get to places and through places that a 4 wheel vehicle could not, especially in the rainy time of year in Europe. You've all seen the pictures of these four wheel vehicles up to their apples in mud. Well motorcycles could get through that, it was a struggle but you could do it. They were light enough where you could push them out of these holes even by yourself and didn't need 5 or 6 guys to get the vehicle moving on.
In WW2 a funny thing happened on the way to motorcycle success in combat. Along comes the jeep. The jeep displaced the motorcycle in the roles for which it had been used in WW1. To the extend that you had any messages carried physically, it was probably carried by the jeep. Jeeps could haul a lot more than motorcycles could, they could get through a lot of tough places with their high ground clearance and four wheel drive as compared to 4 wheel vehicles of WW1.
By the time WW2 comes along we have radio traffic, we had sophisicated codes, we have airplanes that can go great distances if you need to actually deliver a message physically rather than use radio traffic. You didn't need motorcycles to carry important military orders from here to there. Motorcycles were used by American forces mostly for patrol duties, traffic control, which could be important if you needed to move a large convoy to the battle. But they were much less a fighting vehicle in WW2 with American forces than in WW1.
Harley Davidson cornered the market on sales to the United States Army. But still Indian, for a couple of years, 1942-3, made about 16000 motorcycles in each of those years. They were used by Canadian forces, and you'd see them in Australia, basically British Commonwealth countries.
Final Turning Point After WW1 1918-20
WW1 was a vital turning point for Indian. The company made a lot of money out of military business, contrary to rumours and stories over the years. In fact, in 1919 they made over $900,000.00 which is the second most profitable year Indian ever enjoyed. But what happened in WW1 is that, basically, Indian committed it's entire production to military use. There were very few civilian motorcycles made for about two years running. In fact there was an add in one of the magazines, it said "civilian deliveries will have to wait." What this meant the dealers had nothing to sell for about 18 months during WW1. And so the Indian dealers survived either by selling other makes they might have handled at the same time or they went out of business or switched to other makes. And quite a few of those shops switched over to Harley Davidson. They had been campaigning very hard to add dealers to their network.
It wasn't just the fact they couldn't sell motorcycles for a while. When the war was over, they had holes in their marketing plan. There were places where there were no Indian shops left. It wasn't always easy to just go back to a city and get started again because you have given a 2-3 year head start to a rival. So even in those dealerships that managed to stay alive they tended to be weaker than they had been. And so what happened was a lot of the Indian shops became marginal economically. They relocated into smaller, dirtier and more cramped quarters and they didn't have enough money for enough spare parts and so on and so forth. The repercussions spread into all kinds of areas and lasted really from then on. So WW1, viewed in the long haul, although it was profitable for Indian really set the stage for Harley Davidson being the largest American producer and Indian being number 2. And that's the way it stayed for the rest of Indian's existence.
One of the problems Indian had in the 1920's was in effect absentee ownership. The company had floated so much stock and that stock was publicly traded to the point that people who were not interested in the production of motorcycles were in control of the financial destiny of the Indian Motorcycle Company. What this led to was a lot of stock speculation. Prior to Mr Dupont taking over in the late 20's, that there were situations where it appears in retrospect that money was passed under the table from various members of the board to one another for so-called personal services contracts. They would go out and do something for Indian If they could do it for x amount of dollars and if they could do it for less than that, they could save the difference. These kind of things are now against the law but Indian did those things.
When Mr Dupont took over the company, he inherited a company that had some crooked dealings. Over $1million had disappeared from the assets ledger of the Company in the previously 2 to 3 years. The company had become a slush fund for some crooked management. Stock speculation, wasting resources on non motorcycle products like shock absorbers, there was a prototype car, outboard motors, ventilators for automobiles, refrigerators, and an air conditioning unit, these may have been serious efforts to make money or they may have been schemes whereby the dollars changed for the experimental work might have been more than they were worth. In any case, as a result of all these irregularities and unwise expenditures of company resources by the time that Mr Dupont took the company over in early 1930, he had a weak sister on his hands. He started from a position of weakness and it is to his credit that Indian actually survived the depression. It pulled about even with Harley Davidson in 1940. The production of the two factories were very close in 1940. But the Army awarded essentially all the motorcycle business to Harley Davidson during WW2.
Ralph Rogers Bold Plan 1945-53
Coming out of World War 2, Indian was kind of on thin ice. In the 15 years prior to that, the company had profitable years and in other years, losses. The losses tended to be bigger than the profits. In fact overall, they had lost over $260,000.00 during Mr Dupont's tenure from 1930-45. Indian did make a lot of motorcycles for military forces for allied nations in 1942-43, about 16000 a year. But they made almost no motorcycles or very few in 1944, not many in the first half of 1945. So this great Indian Motorcycle company was occupied with building parts for landing gears, with making hinges for bomber bay doors, and all kinds of little sub contracts to keep alive. What had happened was a lot of motorcycle expertise had been lost. Harley Davidson, conversely, spent most of the war, doing what they do best which is building motorcycles. So Indian was in weak financial shape coming out of the war and Mr Dupont was tired of riding this roller coaster so he looked around for a buyer. He did manage to sell it in late 1945 to Ralph Rogers who had other plans for the company.
What did Ralph Rogers buy? Number one, he bought a cherished name. Indian was still a very strong marketing term throughout the world really. It was a famous product. If you asked anyone to name a couple motorcycles, it would be a rare person who didn't mention Indian in the first two breaths. Mr Rogers also, by buying the Indian Company, had a liason with all the shops that had an Indian sign out front. Now even though a lot of them weren't as healthy as they were back in the George Hendee and Oscar Hedstrom days, hey, they had an address, they were in the phone book, they had expertise, they were ready to sell motorcycles. That was an important asset to buy even though, on ledgers of the Company, those dealerships didn't belong to the Indian Motorcycle Company. He had to buy the Indian Company to have those connections with the dealers. And those dealers wanted to stay affiliated with Indian. This was a product they knew. That had been saying for years that Indian makes the best motorcycles in the world. The dealers had a vested interest in riding the tide and giving Mr Rogers a chance. So Rogers had other things in mind other than building traditional Indian Motorcycles to keep the dealers alive at the same time, he could plan for a new range of light weight motorcycles along the lines of the English motorcycles.
Ralph Rogers, as his main objective, did not intend to build the same old Indian. He knew they were good motorcycles for what they were used for, they were used for rawhiding riders, they were used or misused quite a bit, they were ridden fast and hard. They were good motorcycles, they stood up to the rugged habits that American riders had. Mr Rogers had his eye on Europe. Motorcycles had always been, by order of magnitude, much more popular there then they had been in this country. Motorcycles were used extensively for going to work and regular commuting type purposes. So he had visions of that happening in America, providing he could come up with a line of motorcycles that had those user friendly qualities that the European machines, that is: motorcycles that were light, maneuverable, easy to start, clean to operate and so forth.
He had the right idea, but he had it at the wrong time and with the wrong product. He had the right idea becaause it was only 15 years later that Honda exploited the same idea. "You meet the nicest people on a Honda" the add showed this rather attractive 35 year old woman coming out of a grocery store. She had her sack of groceries, she'd put them into her basket on her Honda 50 and away she went back home. So she was one of those nicest people.
There was a real logic to what Mr Rogers was trying to do but he did it at the wrong time. Now this is one of those hindsight things. I don't think Ralph Rogers was any less attuned to the situation than any other industrialist. But what happened was, in late 1948, the British Government, to recover from WW2, devalued their currency. The English Pound went from being worth about $5 to about $4. The consequence of that was English motorcycles went down in price by about 20% to 25% overnight. So the motorcycles that Mr Rogers was trying to build in the late 1940's (which were about the same general type and size as the Continental and more importantly the English motorcycles) instead of being cost competitive and drawing on the patriotic appeal that would exist for an American motorcycle, suddenly they were not cost competitive at all. This might have been overcome but there was another problem, Mr Rogers had the wrong product. The idea of the motorcycle was good. These were called the single cylinder Arrow and the 2 cylinder vertical twin Scout. But they were not reliable machines. They didn't have enough testing, so the public got to do the testing. Now they could do that back in the 20's and 30's. Indian and Harley Davidson always did that, let the public do the testing. But you couldn't do that anymore because the English and to a lesser extent the other European motorcycle makers, they had their act together better, engineering-wise with those kind of motorcycles. So there were a lot of problems with those motorcycles, a lot of reliability failures, warranty claims. They got off to a bad start and things got increasingly worse.
In an effoert to save the Indian Motorcycle Company, Mr Rogers formed a partnership with an English firm so that English motorcycles could be sold through Indian dealerships while he improved the engineering of the lightweight models and continued to build a few more of the old large Indian Chiefs. This went on from 1950 through 1953. Mr Rogers was replaced, I think in 1950. The English company was in financial control of Indians destiny and they were more interested in importing English motorcycles rather than making the real Indians, although they did make a few hundred every year. I think the last 4 years, 1950 to 1953, there were only about 500 new Indians made each year. These were almost like a job situation, there wasn't a mass production factory operation the way they had been. In fact the last ones weren't even built in the old, traditional Indian factory that was referred to as the Wigwam.
There's an old saying that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your doorstop. But that's really not true. There's more involved in being a successful business than building the best mousetrap. Indian had a great motorcycle, a great product right up til the end and you could ride them years after they went out of production and they were as good as anything on the road. And they had great rider support, loyal riders and loyal dealers. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough because because there had been mismanagement in the WW1 era and back in the 1920's and the company could never recover from that. But I think it's a tribute to the emotional appeal of the Indian and loyalty of it's riders and dealers that Indian was able to keep it's doors open as long as it did.
Today Indian Motorcycles are.....the most collectable motorcycles in the world in my opinion and the most ride-able. They're either the most ride-able collectables or the most collectable ride-ables. They are very practical, they're very sought after. If you go to a meeting of the Antique Motorcycle Club of America today, about half of the motorcycles you will see will be Indian. Interest in old Harley Davidsons have picked up lately but the thing is Indians became collector items in 1954. People knew as soon as the last Indians were made, this is a collectable machine. So in 1964, what did you have if you had a 1953 Harley? Well you had an 11 year old motorcycle, who wanted it? But if you had a 1953 Chief. You had a collectible. It had been collectible for a decade prior to that. The Indians as a collectible historic vehicle took off immediately in 1954. With the other motorcycles, it's been a slower growth process.
Can you imagine some years from now, people gathering together from all parts of the country or even overseas with international meets and we'll say that they gather together because years ago they all used to have Apple computers? I don't see it happening. You don't have the emotional tie in with other products that you have with motorcycles especially the Indian, the mystique of it, the Viking legend aspect, the what if.
What is the mystique of the Indian motorcycle? That's a tough question. Part of it is the styling, part of it is the history, part of it, I think we don't even understand ourselves. I can't answer either why, i'm a fan of history but I am. A person who has a sense of history and likes motorcycles is going to gravitate towards the Indian motorcycle. It just has the most interesting history of any motorcycle that has ever been made."
Jerry Hatfield - Transcript from "INDIAN MOTORCYCLE MEMORIES"
NB: Smiths Motorcycle Company is not an authorised Indian Motorcycle dealer.
