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The original Indian motorycle company was founded in 1901 in Springfield Massachusetts USA, by bicycle racer George Hendee and Swedish immigrant Oscar Hedstrom. Some people wonder why it was called the Indian Motocycle Company instead of Indian Motorcycle Company. In Italy, all motorcycles have names beginning with "moto" e.g. Moto-Guzzi, Moto-Ducati, Moto-Laverda, so perhaps Hedstrom was familiar with that. The earliest models looked like mopeds (bicycles with small single cylinder engines) and only 3 were made in 1901. Interestingly, Triumph began production the next year (1902) and Harley-Davidson the year after (1903). So the order was Indian, Triumph, Harley. This "Big Three" are still around a century later, while many other brands which started later died off years ago. Indian made 143 motorcycles in 1902.
Site reader Buddy Ault kindly submitted this photo of his grandfather E. D. Snodgrass on what looks like a new Indian circa 1902-10 doing some "off roading". (Buddy does not know when the photo was taken.) Maybe one of you AMCA members or other Indian experts can tell us the model year. (Isn't the photo clear and sharp? Those early cameras must have had great lenses.)
In 1914 Indian had been the first with both electric lighting and an electric starter. All very advanced but they did not continue with the electric starters longer than six years nor with the OHV engines nor the 4 VPC engines. (They also tried the 1930's OHV engine in a car of their own design but hardly any were sold.) Had Indian kept using electric starters, OHVs and 4 VPC, they might well have been so far ahead of their competition as to be the dominant brand up to today. Its next major development came in 1916 when Hedstrom's former assistant Charles Gustafson developed the 1 litre "Powerplus". Below we see two photos I took of Carmille Dansereau's unrestored 1917 Power Plus (61 CID or one liter) V-twin with sidecar. The date of manufacture indicates that this particular bike was built in Toronto Canada rather than Springfield Massachusetts as Indians were also produced for a few years in Toronto beginning in 1912 and through World War I. The middle of WW I (1916) was the first year for the Power Plus, and the first engine not designed by Oscar Hedstrom. Both Hedstrom and Hendee had left the company by 1916, being unable to agree with the Board of Directors.
In 1918 the company offered for sale to the public its own new factory racer featuring not only OHV but 4 VPC (valves per cylinder). This was many years ahead of the competition. Considering that 3 or 4 VPC only began to show up on a few street V twins bikes in the late 1980's and mid 1990's, and Harleys are still built with only 2 VPC, it can be said that this V twin was 70 years ahead of its time. Top speed was 120 mph, but the racers were very light and had no brakes, lights, fenders, suspension etc. The high price of this racer resulted in very few sales and it did not last long. Two years later, the Power Plus street model was offered in a 74 CID (1200 c.c.) version for sidecar owners. 1920 was also an important year as the Scout was "born" then. Originally it was only 600 cc. (37 CID) but was enlarged in 1928 to 45 CID (750 c.c.) and called the Scout 101.
To summarize from 1918, the end of WW I, Indian was in a weak financial condition but continued to produce great models. First the 600 cc Scout in 1920, then the Chief (1 liter or 61 CID) in 1921, the Big Chief (1.2 liters or 74 CID) in 1923 and the 101 Scout (45 cubic inches) in 1928. In 1923 the 250,000th Indian rolled off the line.
In 1927 Indian purchased the Ace Four, the brainchild of W.G. Henderson, which became the Indian Four. (The shot below is of a 934 Indian Four, courtesy of Cycle World magazine. Further down this page is more info and photos of the fabulous fours.
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Despite mismanagement Indian survived the Great Depression. Mr. E. Paul Du Pont of paint company fame became President of Indian in 1929 and this was the beginning of a period of good management, profits and the beginning of multi-tone paint jobs of high quality on Indians. Meanwhile Indian and Harley riders continued to compete on the race tracks so in 1934 the Sport Scout came out as a replacement for the 101 Scout (really just an improved 101 in a heavy frame). For more photos of Scouts visit www.indianscoutmotorcycles.com by clicking the link on the handlebar image at the top of this page. Shown below is a 1930's Indian Chief, seen at the Paris Ontario rally of the Canadian Vintage Motorcycle Group circa 2003.
As mentioned earlier in 1918 Indian brought out racing models with OHV and 4 VPC (valves per cylinder), and about 15 years later (early 1930's) they built some OHV hillclimber engines. They also tried the 1930's OHV engine in a car of their own design but hardly any were sold. Had Indian kept using electric starters, OHVs and 4 VPC, they might well have been so far ahead of their competition as to be the dominant brand up to today. In 1940 Indian came out with its plunger rear frame and the famous skirted or valanced fenders (for both Scout and Chief). Also, the Sport Scout engine got a lot more finning, probably to compensate for the extra heat generated by hauling all that extra weight around. I have never owned or ridden a Scout and have received conflicting answers on whether the Sport Scout used the Chief gearbox. If it did, and if I owned one, I'd be very excited about the new 4 speed and smoother shifting gearbox being made for the pre 1954 Chiefs. As noted earlier, except for a few (25 - 50) race-only 648 Big Base Scouts in 1948, 1941 was the last year for the civilian Sport Scout, so valenced fender Scouts are only 1940 and '41.
Famous cowboy singer/actor Roy Rogers rode a 1940 or '41 Indian Four with the valenced fenders. (Roy owned many bikes over the years, including several Indians.) The price of well restored Fours has become amazing; over US$50,000! The 1934 Four seen on Daytona Beach below in 1988 could be worth more than that now.
The Indian Four began in 1927 when Indian purchased the Ace company. In fact for the first year or so the bike was called the "Indian Ace". (The Ace itself had been developed by the same engineer, one Will Henderson, who had designed the Henderson four. When Henderson was bought out by the Schwinn Excelsior company he left it and in 1919 started the Ace company, building a very similar inline four cylinder engine bike which was bought out by Indian in 1927. The Henderson Four died in 1931 and the Indian Four in 1942. The only engine difference between the early Indian and Ace Fours was that the Indian had five instead of three main bearings. Over the years the sheet metal on the Indian grew more massive. A note on internal combustion engine terminology: Flatheads are also known as L heads or side-valve. (Overhead valves or OHV is actually a misnomer, best term is "valve-in-head".) Prior to 1936 the Four had an F head design (also used in Jeeps a few years later I believe). The exhaust valves were below the head and off to the side as in any old flathead design but the inlet valves were in the head as in later OHV designs. Unique in autmotive history, in 1936 and 1937 only, the F head was reversed. This "upside down" engine is considered a mistake. Everone knows that valve-in-head is much better than the sidevalve design, albeit more expensive to manufacture. The inlet port and valve is much more crucial than the exhaust for breathing and power. The only rationale I can think of is they must have been aiming for cooler exhaust valves as flathead engines, even liquid cooled car ones, are known to overheat especially in the exhaust area, and Indian Chiefs get 10 mph slower top speed as they get hot. Other than the heat issue, for power if you can't have both vales in the head, the F head is the next best choice, and this was reverted to in 1938. At least the Sport model of the 1937 Four had two carburetors. With a Four, the more carbs the better. Most Indian Fours had one carb at the very back to cool the rear cylinder. (Same was used on the Ariel Square Four.) The downside is that the front cylinders get a tiny bit less fuel and air mixture. In 1938 the company did a major redesign of the Four, generally considered a big improvement, but stupidly they did not take the opportunity to go to full OHV (it was still an F head) nor to go to multiple carbs, nor to increase the displacement. Displacement of the Four was always just over 77 CID or 1260 c.c. According to Harry Sucher (in his excellent book "the Iron Redskin") one can bore the Four out to 90 CID (1500 c.c.) and use Sport Scout pistons. One wonders why the factory didn't do this themselves.
Here we see a close-up
of the engine of a 1934 Indian Four. (Photo
courtesy of Cycle World magazine.)
WW II and beyond
(The British and Europeans were actively fighting in the War since 1939 but the USA did not get really involved until Jan. 1942; here I refer mainly to the period from 1940 on, as that is when the Chiefs and Scouts first got thier famous skirted fenders.) During WW II Indian made a detuned Sport Scout for the Allied armies called the 640.(Six refers to the model Scout and 40 to the year of manufacture, Three refers to Chiefs, e.g. a 341 is a 1941 Chief.) It also made many model 741's which were 30.5 CID or 500 cc, slow as molasses but reliable. Many survive in Britain and New Zealand. During the war Indian made about 33,000 military cycles compared to about 50,000 or 90,000 by Harley (depending on who you read). Harley not only sold more but their contract provided that they earned more per unit. Instead of profiting by the war like so many big manufacturing companies in the US, Indian lost money!
Many 30.5 CID and 45 CID Scouts (740's and 640's) and some 74 CID Chiefs were sold to the American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British military during the war, (I once saw an ex-French Chief in the 1960s' North of Toronto Canada) and many of the smaller models remain in Europe and New Zealand. In civilian terminology, the smaller 500cc models were called "thirty-fifties" or "Junior Scouts" or "Pony Scouts". In military terms they were model 741b's. The military 750 c.c. versions, called 640b's, were detuned Sport Scouts. The US military versions had their engines stamped WLA while the Canadian ones which were converted to hand clutch operation by Bernie Nicholson were WLC. Somehow there seems to be a lot more WLC's than WLA's around in the last 15 years or so, many having migrated South to the USA. Did the WLA's all get scrapped or turned into ugly choppers? You never see any anymore. Below is a 15 year old photo of Harold Carlaw's WLC. My daughter (who was then aged 2) and I had a brief ride in the sidecar. It was fun. The second shot shows the rig in front of the Memorial War Museum which is another good reason to visit Campbellford.
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A number of Chiefs were sold to the Canadian and US military, and obviously the Australian army too, because the superb restoration below is by Jim Parker of Ashwood, Victoria, Australia. (See his website for more beauties for sale: www.Parkerindian.com.au.) This 1200 cc. motorcycle is of 1944 vintage.
When I was in Europe in 1969 I saw a 1940's Chief in France and as mentioned had already seen one back in Canada, and they had their speedometers in kilometers rather than miles. The US President gave a large number of 80 CID Chiefs to the Shah of Iran in 1951, and most of these seem to have been recently bought and brought to North West Europe.
To see photos of Indian's smaller, lighter Scout models, click on the handlelbar navigation image at top of page which takes you to the Indian Scout motorycles page of this website.
No Indian history is complete without mention of the advanced military 841 model. Sadly only 1000 were made and barely a handful saw combat action before the US Army decided to order huge numbers of Jeeps instead. The 841 (and similar Harley XLA which suffered the same fate) copied the successful German BMW army motorcycles including shaft drive and 4 speed hand clutch/foot shift. (The Harley looks a lot like a 1940's military BMW, while the Indian 841 looks more like a late 1960's and up Moto-Guzzi because it was a 90 degree V instead of a 180 degree flat or "boxer" engine layout.) Why Indian and Harley did not use these advanced (for 1941) bikes as postwar civilian models is a big mystery. The ad below from Dec. 1943 issue of Popular Mechanics suggest that at least some folks at the Indian factory were thinking along these lines.
Why did Indian not follow what the ad suggested and sell civilian versions of the 841? Insted of eye-popping, the postwar Chiefs were same as prewar except for new forks taken from the 841. (A handful of 1945 Chiefs were made and they were identical to 1941's.) Harley even today (2012) still does not have shaft drive, and it only offered foot shift as an option in the early 1950's, (tank shift and foot clutch were made almost to 1980). One answer is that the XLA and 841 were expensive to produce, but in the postwar era people, including returning soldiers, had cash to burn and car and motorcycle sales were huge 1946-49. The difficult and expensive development work (designing the automobile type transmission and drive shaft gears and rear hub) had already been done and the tooling and jigs already set up. I think the main reason Indian and Harley did not splurge a bit on making the army models into postwar civilian ones was that they did not need to spend any extra money as there was such a huge postwar demand for motorcycles and cars that it was easy for makers to sell prewar designs that had only minor improvements or styling changes, as carmakers did until the end of the 1940's.
Yet my theory that Indian was too cheap to spend money on new models after the war is wrong, if one extends "postwar" from 1946 to 1949. Ironically, as the postwar demand surge tapered off in 1948, Indian spent millions designing and building a brand new series of modern singles and parallel twins which appeared in 1949. This was all Ralph Rogers' idea but the money turned out to be totally wasted as these imitation English designs flopped. Also the currency difference between US and UK money changed around 1950, making British products very cheap, so buyers flocked to Triumph, BSA, Norton, Mathchless and Royal Enfields. In retrospect it would have been smarter for Indian to have spent the money on an improved model 841. The 841's apparently (I have never ridden one) only had two flaws: the transmission was not reliable (time and money could have cured that) and since the bike weighs almost as much as a Chief (about 550 pounds), with only a 750 c.c. flathead engine producing (I'm guessing) 25 horsepower, acceleration and top speed were sluggish. (However the design is ideal to convert to twin carbs for a few more "horses" and could not Chief top ends and a longer stroke been added? This would have solved the power problem. ) Nearly all bikes and cars in the 1945- 60 ear were prettly slow anyway. Certainly the BMW's were slow even with their OHV but small displacement engines, and it is not as if Indian needed a fast bike to compete. Imagine if Indian had competed with BMW R50 and R-60 series and taken a share of that market. The original Indian company might have survived. The idea of salvaging something from the 841 must have occurred to somebody in managment because at least Indian used the 841 fork in its 1946-48 Chiefs (with slight modification). Note on the 841 the remote oil tank under the seat, giving more room for petrol / gasoline in the stylish fuel tanks. This would have been a great idea for the Chiefs. The 841's plunger rear suspension offers an extra inch or two travel compared to the Chief's measly 1.5 ". (I measured an 841 plunger once but have lost my notes.)
What would a civilian version of the 841 looked like? The first 841 shown in the first row below is military spec except for extra chrome and red paint. The one in the second row is more civilianized with valanced fenders and headlamp nacelle. (Photo courtesy of Canadian Biker magazine, taken by Allan "Zippy" Lowson of the Laughing Indian Riders. I am not sure but I think the second bike was owned by Ed Kretz.)
After the war the Indian Motocycle Company had a surplus of unsold army machines and sold them to the public at low prices (since they were new, it seesm to me they should have sold the 841's for a high price). The 841 as can be seen above looks just like a Moto-Guzzi except for the flathead (sidevalve) engine heads. The 841 even had shaft drive and foot-shift/hand-clutch. Admittedly it was a lot like the BMW except that the cylinders were in a V instead of facing each other. The pre 1980's BMW boxer design invites cylinder heads to be bashed against rocks and curbs, or just the road if you lean over too far, and the cylinders obstruct your feet. My ankles hurt riding them. Also the cylinders make your feet too hot in warm weather. The only reason BMW keeps winning the Paris Dakar rally is that those bikes sit very high off the ground and have excellent riders and of course the famous BMW reliability. For normal machines in normal use by normal riders the 90 degree vee (Guzzi, 841) instead of 180 degree BMW boxer arrangement makes a lot more sense. Years later Guzzi showed the world what a great design Indian had in the 841, although they claim they invented it on their own and did not copy the 841. Below is a 1983 Guzzi 950 c.c. I owned in the 1990's. Imagine the Guzzi in red and this may have been what Indian would have been producing in 1983 had they been smart enough to maintain the 841 for civilians after the war, and upgrade them over the years. Someday I might put a Guzzi engine and transmission and shaft and rear hub into an 841, and add a disk brake on the front to cope with the extra power.
Even rarer
(and much faster) than the 841's were some secret factory experimental fours
built during the war. Below is a very rare photo of a very rare 1941 prototype
of an 800 c.c. (or is it 880?) OHV Four with shaft drive (and possibly the
4 speed foot shift used on the 841?) . This lean machine looks like it would
have been fast and had good handling. This was far more advanced than anything
Harley produced until their recent V-Rod. Another "too bad/what if?"
I was thrilled to see the actual machine at the Rhinebeck AMCA meet in 2007,
and will load my photos into this website over Xmas. 
Indian could not afford to revive the 1942 Four after the war. It was an old design by then, and the market for a big, deluxe Four may not have existed in 1945. (But Ariel sold lots of Mark II Square Fours starting in 1953.) The Indian Four always had chain drive but was a natural for a shaft drive, being an inline automotive design. Shaft drive made perfect sense, and Indian had already built one for its 841 army model. So a close look at the photos shows the military 841 frame and shaft drive, but instead of the 841 forks (used on 1946-48 Chiefs), telescopic forks (which did not appear in civilian production until 1950). Importantly, note the modernized four cylinder OHV engines. (The prewar fours were F head, or upside down F and never full OHVs.) Photo below shows 1945 "Solo Four" prototype. If anyone has more or better photos or any info on the bike below, please mail or Email me copies.
To repeat the above with a bit more detail, unlike some mechanical engineering related companies who made a fortune during the war selling to the government, Indian did not. Indian was in such bad straights after WW II that Paul DuPont sold it to a manufacturing group headed by one Ralph Rogers. Rogers was so dedicated he put a lot of his own money (like, millions) into Indian. He had the right ideas - fresh modern designs, get away from the oily outlaws and police market into selling motorycles for the whole family (just like the "You meet the nicest people on a Honda" ad campaign of the 1960's and '70's). This resulted in the "Torque series" inspired by English designs similar to Edward Turner's vertical twin Triumph. But the resultant 213 c.c single Arrow and 426 c.c.twin Scout were rushed into production without proper testing and assembly and were junk. (Wheels collapsed, main bearings failed, magnetos failed, gears would not shift, the valve gears failed.) Also they were too small to compete with Triumph, BSA, Norton, Matchless and Royal Enfield (500 and later 650 c.c. by the end of the decade). Then the British government devalued the pound sterkling making the English imports a lot cheaper than the Indians. With losses instead of profits, the proposed 880 cc. shaft-drive Four had to be abandoned. Another sales failure was the 250 cc. single cylinder, 3-speed Brave. It was cheap but very slow and some were unreliable due to bad batches of metal. I do not know if these were made in the US or UK (it had a British gearbox), but I do know they were only sold in the US from 1950- 53 inclusive and then in the UK from 1954 on. There wasn't enough money to create a replacement for or make serious improvements to the big Chief. An attempt to create a foot shift failed, despite dealers being told it existed! (Indian started to make a foot shift conversion as early as late 1948 aiming for the 1950 model, but gave up about three years later.)
By the time Indian had enlarged the twin engine to 500 cc. and gotten some of the bugs out (1950 and 1951), and renamed the Scout the Warrior, it was too late and 1952 was its last year. Yet another reason for its demise was that the price of competing English machines was greatly lowered after the British government devalued their currency. (It would have been cheaper for Indian to import British models and sell them under the Indian names wich is exactly what they then did - see the page in this site called 1955-85 era.)
Below are some photos I took of a 440 cc. Scout at the Paris rally, plus an exploded view of the engine showing it to be similar to a Triumph twin of that era, but with the timing side on the left and primary and final drive on the right (maybe because the Chief and Scout had final drives on the right?). For more photos including the 500 c.c. Warriors, visit www.indianscoutmotorcycles.com which can be accessed via the handlebar at the top of this website. .
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Many Indian riders were irate that there was no V-twin flathead Scout for sale after the war, and privately owned Scouts continued to win races for many years after the war. Some privateers put Chief flywheels in to get 950 c.c. (57 CID) and a lot more power out of their racing or souped up street Scouts. The factory did relent slightly in 1948, and produced 25 - 50 racing Scouts stamped FDH, but commonly known as the “big base Scout” or the "648 Daytona" as Daytona was where most were raced. They performed extremely well in their class (Class C) and continued to win races for the next six years! In fact at various other types of races across the USA, racing Scouts continued to do well and even win up to the 1970s! But what was the point if no mass produced versions were made for sale to the general public? (Yet another lost sales opportunity and management blunder.) (Visit www.indianscoutmotorcycles to see a photo of a 648 racer.)
In 1948 and for a couple of years after, Indian imported 3 speed bicycles from Britain and called them Indians. Evidently this venture was a failure as these bicycles are very rarely seen.
A much more expensive venture, making and selling an outboard boat motor (called
the Arrow) failed not because there was anything unreliable or unattractive
about the engine, but it was a planning and then a marketing error because it
was too big and heavy for fishermen who wanted to troll and too small a displacement
for people who wanted to tow skiers or just zoom around. Here is a photo of
an Arrow outboard motor courtesy of Allan "Zippy" Lowson. The series
of blunders continued when Indian also tried making suspension dampers for cars
(shock absorbers) but somehow that flopped too. (One is reminded of Harley's
failure with golf karts and recreational trailers some years later.) Unfortunately
during its last four years (1950-53 inclusive) the only bikes Indian had for
sale were the Warrior, the flathead 250 Brave, and the flathead Chief with its
1920's 3 speed "crashbox" transmission. These were no match for the competition.
In addition to cancelling the Scout after WWII, by 1949 Indian also decided that the Chief was obsolete, and again the fans were outraged. Unlike with the Scout, however, Indian responded and brought back the Chief in 1950. However the factory did not update it with OHV or a 4 speed synchro-mesh gearbox, both of which it really need to compete with Harley in the early fifties, and few Chiefs were sold. (It would have been smarter and probably cheaper to spend money updating the Chief than to blow millions on the ill-fated Torque series.) Actually Indian had a very inexpensive solution to the big V-twin problem literally in their hands in 1949 but with their usual management incompetence and tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory they failed to follow though with it. In 1948 they had sent a stock Chief to the Vincent company in England to see if the super powerful (for its day) ultra-modern (for 1948) Vincent V twin engine and gearbox would fit in the Chief rolling chassis. The Vincent engineers got to work and accomplished the task in very short order. The OHV engine and its 4 speed footshift gearbox barely fit, but they did fit with no major frame changes. Even the stock generator drive setup with its belt and tin cover fit! The exhaust routing was not at all unfaithful to the overall Chief styling. In fact having a pipe on each side really helped the Chief's "bad side" (the left side). At a glance you would not know that the Vincent engine did not always belong in the Chief. It, including gearbox and primary case, fit so well it looked as if one company had designed the entire bike. Although the fastest Vincent engines - the Black Shadow and the rare Black Lightning racer - were not reliable for ordinary use and American mileages, the Rapide version was. Although mild compared to a Black Shadow it was peppier than a Chief mill. Both the English and US companies tested the prototype and found it satisfactory, but sadly nothing more was followed through with on either side of the Atlantic. In my opinion, this was a huge mistake for Indian, as the poor sales of the old fashioned 1950-53 Chief showed, and also a huge mistake for the Vincent company which also died two years after Indian. If the Vindian had gone into production both companies might have done well for many years thereafter. Possibly Indian would have done so well it would have bought a controlling interest in Vincent. There would not have been a lot of extra cost involved in producing the Vindian since everything except engine mounts and exhausts and brackets were already being produced by either company. Another golden opportunity wasted!
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The blue one above is a re-creation of the original, painstakingly done by Wigwam Engineering of Australia, who now provide an OHV conversion for the side valved Chiefs. The photo was originally published as part of a larger article on the Vindian in the Oct. 1997 issue of Classic Bike magazine, England and this shot is reproduced with their kind permission.
Around 1949 (according to author Harry Sucher) the Indian company split into two parts. One part (mainly the dealer network and goodwill) was wholly purchased by Brockhouse, an English engineering conglomerate who exported Matchless/AJS, Norton, Royal Enfield, Vincent and also made trailers, springs and tools. This was called the Indian Sales Corp. The other part was bought by a US firm called Titeflex who would keep manufacturing motorycles, and it manufactured the Indians until 1953. Many sources say this. However according to an article in Classic Bike (June 1987) it is simply not true that the British Brockhouse corporation controlled the Indian Sales Corporation (the marketing and distribution wing) and the American Titeflex corporation controlled manufacturing. According to this article Brockhouse called all the shots by late 1951 and ordered production of Indians to cease in 1953 after a few years of huge losses on the Arrows, Scout/Warriors, Braves and Chiefs. For more on this second phase of the Indian history go to the web page for the 1955-85 Era via the navigation handlebar at top of your monitor. Suffice it to say here that in 1955 Brockhouse began selling (via Indian dealers) English "Royal Enfield" motorcycles done up with Indian badges and accessories and using the old Indian names. This went on until 1960 when the last of the badged Indians were sold, and the remaining Indian dealers (many had abandoned Indian) were told to sell the popular English "Matchless" motorycles (without any "Indian" marks on them) in 1961.
An interesting footnote to all the above, racing successes of Max Bubeck:
Although the Warrior was a sales flop it did have one moment of shining glory. It won the 1962 Greenhorn Enduro - a 500 mile desert race. The bike was at least ten years old by 1962, and the race was so tough that of 170 entrants only 23 finished. A large part of this success was the rider: Max Bubeck. Max rode his 1939 Indian Four hundred of miles per week, and offered a video on how to rebuild and improve a Four, until his death in 2011 athe age of around 90!
Amazingly, fifteen years earlier Max won the 1947 Greenhorn enduro race on his then eight year old Indian Four - the last bike in the world anyone would choose to ride in a 500 mile enduro over desert and mountain. Check the photo below taken after the race and note the size of the bike, its lack of ground clearance, its simple front forks (not Indian - made by Vard) and rigid (hard tail) rear frame, and to top it all off remember it is a 3 speed with a suicide clutch! Unlike Harley foot clutch pedals which will stay in any position you leave them in, the Indian clutch pedal is just like that of a car, and it will fully engage instantly if you lift your foot off. This can cause you to suddenly jolt ahead into a car or other obstruction. (I know from experience.) Thus the expression "suicide clutch" only applies to Indians and not old Harleys. Another thing that made old Indian Chiefs and Fours and Scouts harder to ride than Harleys was that there was no gate or detent for the hand shift lever. You had to feel your way into the middle gear (second gear), which made for slower shifting until you got used to it. Also hard to get used to was the throttle on the left grip instead of the right. Many people who can ride an ordinary motorcycle simply cannot ride an Indian.
PHOTOS OF 1940's and 1950's Indians
The most common Indian Chief is the postwar 1946-48 type, due to the post WW II sales boom. The factory considered it obsolete by 1949 so there were virtually no 1949 Chiefs made, but due to popular demand and the company's lack of any large sized replacement and the failure of the lightweights it was brought back in improved form in 1950.
The 1950-53 Chiefs are the most desired Indians by collectors, although some prefer the Indian 441 four cylinder (which ceased production in 1941) or the flathead V-twin Scout (750 c.c.) production of which ended when the war ended. Real connaisseurs prefer the 1950 and '51 Chiefs over the 1952-53 as they had the front-wheel drive speedometer (introduced in 1948 and dropped in late 1951 to save money - resulting in an ugly plug for the old drive hole in the front brake cover) and the earlier upswept exhaust and the earlier American carburettor, (inferior in function to the Amals used on 1952-53, but more reliable) plus bigger swoopier front fenders compared to 1952-53. Engineering-wise, however, the very rare model 841 (made for the Army in 1944) must take the cake. It had foot shift, shaft drive, equal cooling to both cylinders, longer rear plungers, an under-seat oil tank, etc. Photos appear much further down, but back to the postwar Chiefs: Compared to the 1946-48 Chief (which had the new front end from the 841), the 1950-53 "Blackhawk 80" or "Roadmaster" had 1300 cc. instead of 1200 (stroked, as the 74 CID bore was already at its limit), and had a modern telescopic-hydraulic fork which looks and works very well. There was a spring on the left of the crank to absorb engine shock, and this bulge in the primary chain cover is another way to identify the later models. Unfortunately the factory lacked the money to convert the engine to OHV, and to update the by-then archaic 3 speed, non-synchromesh gearbox.
Below we see examples of nearly stock 1950-53 Chiefs. The scrolly paint on the yellow one's fenders is not stock, nor is the Harley KHK type magneto mounted where the Autolite distributor normally goes. On the right or below (depending on the size of your screen) is a scene from the placid Campbellford rally I attended in the summer of 1997, with a couple enjoying the scenery beside the river with two beautiful Chiefs beside them (a 1946-48 on the left and a 1950-53 on the right, judging by the forks.) One can imagine real North American Indians (aboriginals), probably Huron or Iroquois in this exact location a century earlier.
TECH NOTES re CLUTCHES
Indian had briefly offered a 4 speed gearbox in the late 1930's but it was
simply a 3 speed with another gear spliced between low and what used to be second
(now third). This bridged the big gap between the original 1st and 2nd, needed
for acceleration in the city, but still left a big gap between top gear and
the one below it. It did not reappear after WWII. Instead, in 1949 and early
1950 Indian tried to invent a footshift for its 3 speeder but could not get
the "bugs" out and gave up. Less than a handful of prototype 1950
models had this option. An attempt to improve shifting and elminate the crunching
into gear was made in the early fifties with a "clutch brake" that
stopped the clutch from spinning when disengaged, but this proved unreliable
and most owners have eliminated this "feature" from their machines.
As of the 21st century, Bob Stark (California) sells a foot shift/ hand clutch
kit that is very expensive but works (for old 3 speed gearboxes only), and an
Ontario, Canada man sells the King Clutch which has improved friction and slider
plates to eliminate the crunching, and the Chief Overdrive company in the US
sells a four speed syncro-mesh gearbox (designed by an Englishman who designed
gearboxes for British motorcycle factories in the 1950's) that works perfectly.
In this respect the Overdrive trans is authentically 1950's. All we need now
is for Stark to modify his footshift to work with the new 4 speed trans and
we will have the type of gearbox Indian would have had in the late 1950's had
it survived and prospered.
THE MYTH OF THE 1955 POLICE CHIEFS
After the factory closed in 1953 according to one rumour it briefly re-opened a few months later to assemble 50 Chiefs ordered by the New York City police department, which favored Indians over Harleys. (You can see some early fifties NYPD Chiefs in the Frank Sinatra movie "New York, New York". Note they are red, but are not Fire Department. The NYPD insisted on Indian Red paint on its Indians). According to the rumour a small crew under the Bankruptcy Receiver's OK assembled 50 Chiefs for the police and an extra five for dealers. People who were at the factory and warehouses in 1955 including Emmett Moore deny the story, and according to a reliable source known to this author one of the allegedly 1955 Chiefs has an engine number dating well before the 1953 Chiefs. Moore in a 1994 interview with Jerry Hatfield said that the factory ran right out of parts early in 1953 and despite demand from hundreds of dealers across the USA simply did not have enough parts to make any more than 500 1953 Chiefs. They couldn't get the Linkert Company to build 500 more of the old carburetors so had to use (more modern and efficient) English Amal carbs. Little bits like a chuck that holds the helper spring on the spring-post mounted dual saddles had to be purchased at very high prices. (Yet it occurs to me that the 1952-53 Chiefs either had solo saddles or the new bench style seat, so there would have been no need for the chucks, unless older style Chum-Me-Seats were available as options.) Walter Brown, a manager during the 1950's confirmed with Emmett Moore that the last Chiefs were assembled in early 1953. Among the last were those made for the NYPD, although he puts the number at 75. I suppose there is a chance that Moore and Brown were unaware of the small crew working for the Receiver two or more years later and that the crew could have used unsold stock retrieved from dealers, but this sounds like an expensive and time consuming operation and since a Receiver's job is to make as much money as possible (with minimal expenses) in a short time, this seems very unlikely. I wrote to the NYPD about this several years ago and their reply indicated they simply had no knowledge or records of events so long ago.
HARLEY "Big Twin" v. INDIAN Chief
While Indian was "biting the dust" in the early 1950's, its main competitor
Harley had been selling its OHV "knucklehead" since 1936, and had a 4 speed gearbox
on its big twins also since the late 1930's. (hand shift and foot clutch.) About
the only engineering advantage Indian had by the early 1950's was its plunger
rear suspension (a mere 1.5 inches of travel). Its 80 CID sidevalve engine,
while comparable if not superior to H-D's 74 and 80 CID sidevalve U, UL and
ULH models was no match for the 74 CID knucklehead (which is the direct grandfather
of the latest Harleys). I estimate 53 horsepower for the last 80 CID
Bonneville Chiefs, compared to 49 hp for a pre 1950 Bonneville Chief, and Tod
Rafferty cites 40 for a standard 74 CID Chief. I don't know the hp rating for
the Knucklehead but I was not able to keep up with one (up to about 50 mph)
on a 1980 Yamaha 850 cc triple, whereas I could easily out accelerate
my old Chief. (Keep in mind my friend Danny Lim had to hand shift his knucklehead,
making its performance even more impressive.)
To continue the written history go to the "1955-85 Era" page. The rest of this page features photos to illustrate the above history. Below is a stock 1953 Chief, except it has the earlier style dual seat instead of the bench seat. The dual seat may still have been an option in 1952-53. .
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In these days of many restored and overrestored Chiefs, we forget that most
1940's Chiefs were sold with black wheel rims and just as often with 18" rather
than 16". Below is what a typical 1946-48 Chief looked like in the 1960's (This
one from the Star Weekly of Toronto was actually owned and ridden by a Canadian
Senator!)
Next courtesy of Iron Horse magazine we have a few shots of a stock 1941 Chief. This bike is good because it is obviously not worn out but has not been over-restored. Owner Bob Murray also had a 1941 H-D UL (1200 c.c. sidevalve) so was in an ideal position to decide which 74 CID flathead was better. He chose the Hog, hands down. However I had a '47 Chief (same as the '41 Chief except for slightly better forks) and a 1941 H-D U, and I say the Chief is the smoother, lighter, better bike. The Indian had a plunger rear frame while Harleys were rigid up until 1958. Acceleration on both was so-so. According to Murray and Bob Stark, a stock Chief was slower than a stock Hog, but a slightly souped up Chief was a lot faster than a stock Hog. It seems to me this is missing out on the fact that flathead Harley 74's came stock in 3 stages of tune: U, UL and ULH. So would all three beat a stock Chief or just one or two of the Harley models? And was the Chief a standard or Bonneville (faster) model? You might think that Harley's having a 4th gear would give every Hog an edge over every Indian but in my experience the Hog's 4th gear was no advantage over the Chief's 3 speed because the 4th gear was only a tiny bit higher than 3rd. Also it took longer to change gears on the Hog. Brakes on both bikes were equally pathetic, and going around tight corners at any speed was equally a challenge on both. I agree with Mr. Murray that the old sidevalved Harleys were a lot easier to work on.
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We are nowadays so used to seeing the fat fendered Chiefs that we forget that
all Indians were made without this styling until 1940. (The Scout died during
WW II so was only available with the full valenced fenders in 1940 and 1941.)
Next is a photo of an unrestored version. Although this specimen looks stark
and missing parts, it is all there except for the seat. It looks like a late
1930's civilian Chief. Take away the post 1939 swoopy fenders and chain cover
and the Indian Chief is a very simple design: Flathead V engine, simple carb,
crude 3 speed gearbox, simple suspension, simple electrics. (Which makes one
wonder why they are worth at least $25,000 restored. It's supply and demand
+ that subjective cult factor, including wanting to be a bit different than
the millions of Harley fans while still liking the same basic deign)
CHARLIE MAHONEY
Below is a photo of the late Charlie Mahoney's Indian shop in Campbellford,
Ontario, Canada. The shop is actually a larger than it appears and contains
an Indian outboard motor. Until his death in 2004 at the age of 85, Charlie
still worked on Indians in his shop, and still rode the Chief he bought new
in 1953. (He also rode a Four regularly. His first bike was a 1929 Four which
he bought in 1935.) Then there is a view of what I saw looking back out from
Charlie's shop on a recent Indian Day. Next is a photo of Charlie at the Springfield
Mass. "Indian Day", which he rode down to nearly every year on an Indian until
the year he died. (Not many people go touring on old Indians, especially when
they - the rider- are 85 years old!) The blonde is his daughter Mary Jo who
also rides and helps organize the annual Indian Day in their home town of Campbellford,
Ontario. Charlie rode his Chief and Four right up to the end, an inspiration
to us all. "Ride On" in Heaven, Charlie.
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Below is an unrestored 1929 Chief, then an unrestored 1939 Sport Scout, then an unrestored 1949 Arrow 220 cc. single, then a bunch of shots of a 1947 Bonneville Chief found in a barn around 2010. Note the shot showing the big hole in the front crankcse and the major crack though the frame. Reason bike has different colored fuel tank on one side from the other is these are separate "split" tanks and someone must have replaced the original left tank with another. (Click on the thumbnail sized images to enlarge them.) Then there is a white unrestored 1950 Chief which was bought and sold by Starklite Cycles in California. Then in the last thumbnails an unrestored 1953 New York police Chief (for sale on Ebay April 2011). Compare to the two restored 1953 Chiefs which follow to appreciate how much effort. time and money goes into a good restoration, and how polishing, chroming and painting can turn an Ugly Duckling into a Swan.
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The orange one was on Ebay April 2009 and the maroon one on Ebay April 2011. The orange one has custom dual exhausts, higher than stock handlebars, and an extra brace for the seat backrest, all great modifications in my view. Both are gorgeous. (I hope the restorers will contact me so I can give them credit.) Compare to the unrestored `53 Police Chief above (click on "thumbnails" to enlarge).
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(not same bike but to give the idea, click on image to enlarge it)
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Below is a 1918 PowerPlus photo'd by Sergio Scalerandi in Buenos Aires Argentina in Y2K at the Autoclasica display. Sergio travelled 700 km. from Cordoba to attend this show and shine, but we all benefit. To the right is a magazine or newspaper ad from 1936 for a 4 cylinder model.
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Above left is a 1940 (approx.) Indian Four wearing Harley K bags. I shot this
about 1995 North East of Toronto. Below is a restoration done for Dave Schultz
by Krumm's of Austin Texas, highly respected for the quality of their work.
In addition to rebuilding Fours like this 1938, Terry and his Dad do all Indian
models and are especially known for their hopped-up Chiefs stroked to 84 CID
(1370 cc) featuring Krumm cams.
Still on the Fours, below is a beautiful 1939 Four, (orange and yellow) for sale on Ebay in late Nov. 2008, followed by a gorgeous restored red and white 1941 Four also from E-Bay in fall 2008, then a left side view of a dark red and cream 1942 Four (last year made) and a close up of the engine from the left side, then a 1930 in black. Note that the chroming of the front end on the 1939 and 1941 looks great but the 1942 and 1930 bikes further down are more correct with the stock black painted front end. Here is a restoration tip: If chrome is not heat treated properly it becomes brittle and will flake off when the spring metal is stretched or compressed, so do not simply take springs or other flexing parts to a plater unless you are satisfied they know how to do this properly.
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Seen on E-Bay in April 2009 is a striking 1941 Four with 1950-53 front end originally done by Starklite with the rainbow paint scheme. The new front end required moving the horn to a new location (from middle of forks facing ahead to right rear of motorcycle, where it fits seemlessly). The yellow kicker pedal is not stock but fits in very nicely with the paint scheme. Ditto the blue hand grips fit in perfectly. Only other non-stock or non-period-accessory item I can spot is extra leather flaps and studs on solo seat and an external spin-on disposable oil filter, always a good addition to any old motorcycle as back then they had crude internal screens.
Next is a closeup of the
right and left sides of a 1937 Chief restored by well respected, perfectionist
restorer Jeff Grigsby. To see more of his stable visit http://www.indianmotorworks.com
He always has some excellent restored Indians for sale. Next is a 1937 Chief,
done for Dave Schultz by Krumm's, which was Texas business that did superb work,
even made their own cams, but Krumm's has apparently closed. At least their
website is kaput and someone told me they had retired.
Next is a dark blue 1925 Henderson 1300 c.c. with sidecar owned by the Poole family of Hamilton Ontario Canada, photo'd in Y2K. The purpose and operation of the two levers was explained to me but I have since forgotten.:
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Next is a lovely 1941 Chief owned by Greg of Clinton, Ontario canada. (The cane is for his leg.)
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At the Paris Ontario rally, Greg's buddy Donald rode his red '40 Chief (below left) briskly around the ace track with the unsprung rear rear bouncing. Meanwhile in the parking lot were this matching pair of late 1930's Chiefs.
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Next are two shots of a superbly restored 1945 rare "essential use" Chief: recently for sale on E-Bay (during the war metal and rubber and skilled factory labor were in high demand so new civilian motorcycles were only allowed to be sold for essential uses such as police),
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Below is a 1947 Chief at the Autoclasica display in Buenos Aires in Y2K courtesy of Sergio Scalerandi, and next to it is a Chief of the same era that is regularly riden to the Paris rally in Canada:
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Having seen all these photos of unrestored and restored 1946-48 Chiefs, the magazine ad below from 1946 shows what a properly restored factory stock 1946 Chief should look like. (Note there is hardly any chrome although chrome rims etc. were available as an option. Most Chiefs we see nowadays are over-restored):
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Below is a restored 1946 Chief (owned by Rocky's in the USA) that looks exactly like the one in the ad, except for some fringe on the seat, 16" instead of 18" wheel rims, and the pillion pad.
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Next are a couple of views
of a nicely restored (and not over-restored) 1940 police Dispatch Tow trike,
followed by a fire dept. one from a few years earlier, with Scout engine and
forks. 
If anyone recognizes their bike in this site please let me know so I can put your name in as owner. Also feel free to send me photos of your Indians so I can add them to the site. If I got anything wrong in here, Email me the correction: author and web designer.
THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS SENT PHOTOS OF THEIR INDIANS AND COMPLIMENTARY EMAILS (& CORRECTIONS & INFO).
HARLEY's BACKWARDS ENGINEERING
This completes the Indian history up to 1953. If you have read all the above you know why Indian did not convert its L-head V-twin engines to OHV in the 1940's or fifties. More puzzling is "Why did Harley, who brought out the OHV Knucklehead cruiser in 1936, introduce a NEW FLATHEAD SPORTS BIKE in 1952?" Were they nuts? One can understand that Indian could not afford to make an OHV Chief in 1952, having "blown its wad" on the small capacity OHV model range (Arrow, Scout/Warrior), but Harley also tried to copy the popular English OHV sport bikes twins (but with a V-twin instead of a parallel twin), and succeeded, except that it went into reverse engineering by making the new K model a flathead (a.k.a. L head or "side valve"). This is astounding given that the K came out 16 YEARS AFTER the OHV Knucklehead, which was a big success. This would be like as if the V-Rod came out with a Shovelhead based engine. The 1952 K model was a bike that had everything a Triumph, BSA , Norton, AJS, Norton or Enfield had (size, looks, handling, modern front and rear suspension, unit construction (actually a decade ahead of the Brits in that regard) , 4 speed synchromesh footshift, light weight, reasonable handling BUT (due to the sidevalves) NO POWER. The flathead's lack of power was only semi-solved by increasing displacement from 750 to 888 c.c. for the 1954 - 56 years.
The answer according to Ed Youngblood, author of "Century of Indian", published by Motor Books International, is that Harley was not quite as crazy as it now seems. Charles Franklin's achievements with the flathead engine set the path for the Yankee motorcycle industry, even though a valve-in-head engine has way more power potential than a sidevalver. Since the mid-teens Indian and Harley-Davidson had actually produced special 4 VPC (valves per cylinder) single and twin cylinder OHV racers. These bikes were fast and powerful but not reliable or cheap enough to mass produce. For some reason, Charles Franklin focussed his attention on race-development of side-valve engines. He was so successful with his flatheads that Indian and the other US factories gave up on their OHV racers and instead obsessed on getting the last ounce of power out of the old side valve design. (Probably the success of the Ford Flathead V-8 was also an influence, even though by WWII Detroit was also making straight six OHVs. WW II US and Canadian Army trucks came with either flathead V-8 or OHV straight 6 engines.) Thus while the Italian and British motorcycle industries continued with the more sensible valve-in-head designs, e.g. the Triumphant parallel twin designs of Edward Turner, in America the side-valve still ruled. The larger US engines also gave them a power advantage. The only problem with this explanation (that Americans were stuck on sidevalves and too stupid to go to OHV), is that Harley came out with the OHV Knucklehead in 1936, and the postwar Indian "Torque" series bikes were OHV. Not to mention the classic American WWII airplane engines e.g. the Curtiss-Wright "Cyclone" engines which went in production back in 1931 and were used in DC-2's and DC-3 Dakotas and B-17's and the Dauntless bombers being OHV. It is not possible that Indian and harley engineers were ignorant of that famous aviation engine which powered thousand of planes into the 1950's and some DC-3's are still flying today. Some say the Knucklehead was inspired by the Cyclone and similar radial air-cooled aviation engines. (In the image the red paint shows cutaway showing the pistons, pushrods and OHV. Your can just see one of the valves in a brass color, or click on the image to open a much larger one is a separate window)
There is only so much you can do to an engine design with built-in contradictions such as a flathead. (To increase compression ratio to the max means the area over the piston is minimized, which in a flattie means pushing all the mixture over the valves, so the explosion then occurs there and not over the piston, hardly efficient. Likewise to increase compression also means minimizing the valve pockets meaning the valves can't open much, meaning you restrict breathing. On the other hand if you decide to focus on breathing instead of compression, you grind little dished paths between the valve seats and cylinder wall, and relieve the heads to let the valve pockets flow into the heads. Breathing is improved but your compression ratio is reduced! One step ahead and one step back! Tuners had to compromise both compression and breathing. Nowadays a computer and a dynometer and flow bench could probably work out the best compromise, but back then it was trial and error. Apparently the most compression ratio you can get with a side-valver is 7 to 1. Meanwhile 7 to 1 is an industry minimum for a valve-in-head (so-called OHV).
So with the laws of physics setting a stop to flathead development, by the 1950's and sixties, in US flat-track racing British 500cc single cylinder OHVs made the same power as Harley 750 cc twin cylinder flatheads. In other words it took a 50 percent engine size and an extra cylinder to match the power of the English 500 singles. Subjectively it's a toss up which sound you prefer: The sound of a hopped up big single or a hopped up V-twin flathead. I love 'em both and cannot choose. One thing about a flattie though, you can redline it all day and never crash a piston into a valve. There is so little power relative to the engine size that strain on the bottom end is minimal - bottom end failures are unknown. (Also with lower compression they are smooth, while Brit bikes tend to vibrate a lot before they blow their bottom ends.)
So now that we have an understanding of the American engine mentality of that era, that sort of explains why Harley would introduce a flathead sport bike in 1952 (and not convert it to OHV and give it the requisite power to compete with the British twins for five full years). Still seems bizarre though given that Harley itself came out with the OHV Knucklehead in 1936 and it was not even a sports bike.
Equally bizarre and regressive, although the 1952 -56 K and KH had aluminium alloy (flat) heads , the OHV Sportster came out in 1957 with cast iron heads! (Only the English BSA A-7 and A-10 twins still had iron heads in the 1950's to early sixties.) The Sportster, supposedly a sports bike, was handicapped with the very heavy iron heads and incredibly kept them for almost 30 years! Meanwhile the big touring Harleys (Panhead and Shovelhead and all since) had aluminium alloy heads starting about ten years before the Sportster was born. (Nevertheless there may have been some legitimate concerns about the use of aluminum heads for high compression Sportsters as when the racing version of the Sportster (XLR) tried alloy heads serious problems arose, I think with valve seats falling out. But apparently a small company called Thunder Heads made aftermarket alloy heads for Sportsters in the 1970's and these not only proved reliable but made significant power gains due to improved ports.)
P.S. A great and huge coffee table type book simply called THE INDIAN by Tod Rafferty published by Bramley Books, Surrey, England makes a dandy Xmas or birthday present for the Indian motorcycle fan. The ISBN is 1-85833-843-3. It is huge and worth its weight in gold. It covers Indians 1901 - 1953 with focus on competition models and msot pages are pre WW II . (It only contains a few factual errors that I was able to detect. Has countless large glossy photos and lots of information.)
This site is not the official site of the makers of the current lines of Indian motorcycles, INDIAN MOTORCYCLE in Kings Mountain, North Carolina (V-twin) and INDIAN MOTORCYCLE LTD. of Edinburgh, Scotland (4 cylinder)
