It has been over fifty years since the last Indian Chief motorcycle rolled out of the plant in Springfield, MA’s Winchester Square neighborhood. But the machine that helped put the city on the map isn’t ready to be relegated to the annals of history. There are still scores of Indian enthusiasts, young and old, who are keeping the Indian legend alive and the engines on their old bikes revving.
Indian Motorcycle Memories catches up with a dozen of them- including the oldest Indian Motocycle dealer, former company engineers and racers. Their stories, many of which go back to the daredevil days of the 1920’s, are enhanced by a wealth of vintage photos and film footage. In between the memories, the program traces the history of the Indian Motocycle Company, from its humble beginnings to its phenomenal worldwide success to its unexpected failure following WW2. The program ends with an eye towards the future and a look at the increasing popularity of restoring and riding old Indian motorcycles
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 size wheels came on 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 or 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 larger 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 at 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 the 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 designs of the times. The operation of the valve gear was something that was different about the 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 cylinder engine, for example, you would have four of those things. We call them cams. They're 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 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 the construction. From that point on, all the motorcycles except the tires 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 32,000 Indian motorcycles left the Indian factory in Springfield. This would be the 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 world's leading motorcycle producer.
Motorcycling in the "Old Days"
When motorcycles were first 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 turn 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�d 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 vehicle 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 that you had full body coverage- never mind the heat if it was in the summer- because you couldn't get that dust all over you. So you had the big coats and women wore big bonnets. Motorcyclists wore goggles and caps and high collared shirts and leggings and knee high boots because there was always something oily and messy going on down below. And it was better to get it on a pair of boots than 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 or for sale at the local Texaco station- there was no local Texaco station. The first drive in station was in 1913 in Pittsburgh. So a lot of the things we take for granted when traveling by automobile or motorcycle just weren't there. There were no motels until 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 go to this big tall, five story, red brick building then turn left and go a mile and a quarter �til you come to this large oak tree on the left then take the fork on the right. This would be 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 even when as the car got better. Finally it got to the 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 lot 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 first or the first manufacturer of significance to adopt a number of features. Electric starting for the Indian in 1914 was the first in the world. Rear suspension on the Indian was not the first but certainly was the first motorcycle of stature and of any significant sales to have rear suspension. That came about in 1913. The first 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 earliest and these footboards which was the first in the industry. I think they probably were the first 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'd make the spark occur faster by twisting the grip towards you if you wanted to go faster and that was the right hand grip. So the very first 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 to in the world with a left hand throttle.
The clutch and the primary drive system- the system that links up 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 aluminum 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 it 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 called the side valve Indian. This was an engine that had all the major moving parts enclosed. Harley Davidsons and the Indians prior to that had about half the valve mechanisms setting up on top of the cylinders and working those valves up and down. You could see all the little fingers out there and they would gather dust and oil. Oil and dust together is a grinding compound so all those moving parts that were exposed wore rapidly and were messy. Indian didn�t have that after 1920 because all that stuff was inside where it belongs, was well lubricated and didn�t 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 early 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 cylinder engine design during the 1920�s and 30�s
Racing
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 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 Slivers Boyd, Specks Warner, Mile-a-Minute Murphy, Millionaire Marty Graves, and one of my favorites, 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're 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 out across the United States. They were in Philadelphia, Denver, Brooklyn, Tacoma, Los Angeles, Dallas. They were all over the country. These tracks were very short, typically one quarter 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 races were conducted at amusement parks. And people went to these things at night. Well, you had all this fire coming out of the engines and blue flames, orange flames. And all the popping and all the noise, and the rumble of the boards and the smell of the 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. And so motordromes 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 races as official contests any longer.
In 1911, Indian finished first, second, third, fifth and sixth at the 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 benefited 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 own way until about 1915, when Harley Davidson got into racing for the first 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 motorcycle 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 through 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 those records.
The Paradox of Racing
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 realized that racing was important to a very young motorcycle company to establish its reputation for the quality of its product, 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 or 10, 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 drive 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 paradox- 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 number of others that were good motorcycles but just didn't cut it in the marketplace 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.
The Riders and their Clubs
Motorcycles started out as did automobiles as something that the affluent were involved with- doctors, lawyers, professional 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 didn�t 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. Even though it�s a little bit illogical that did give an electric excitement that you made a long trip 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 man�s 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 sidecar 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 a 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 30�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 the other riders you knew best. And it turns out that the riders you knew best were the people who were riding the same brand of motorcycles as you did because the clubs tended to be organized by one or the other motorcycle shop in a town. By the 1920's, there 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 spreading out. I have friends that have been friends for 70 odd years or 60 or whatever, and those friendships started out at the Indian shop. If one or the other guys had ridden a Harley they wouldn�t be playing poker today.
Police
Motorcycles caught the attention of police departments almost immediately. It was about 1904 that New York City purchased its first Indian motorcycle and other cities weren�t far behind in purchasing motorcycles. Motorcycles were maneuverable, they didn�t 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 WW1, motorcycles were prominent in all the major cities for patrol activities. This was an era, incidentally, before the 2-way radio was perfected. And so if you needed to chase a bank robber or traffic violator, a motorcycle was a good way to do 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 didn�t leave behind certain problems. Indian liked to brag about the left hand throttle. That was a neat thing, because with a left handed throttle you could twirl your trusty Smith and Wesson from your holster and shoot at whoever. They ran a lot of ads 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 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 that 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 aluminum cover for the front chain that 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 telling the public that yes, there was free and open competition for these police motorcycles- actually you were greasing the skids either for Springfield or Milwaukee to make sure your favorite brand or your brand if you were the dealer, got the business.
Military
In WW1 the motorcycle was 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 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 that 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 extent 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 four wheel vehicles of WW1.
By the time WW2 comes along we have radio traffic, we had sophisticated 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, 1942-43, made about 16,000 motorcycles in each of those years. They were used by Canadian forces, and you�d see them in Australia, basically British commonwealth nations.
Financial 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 rumors and stories over the years. In fact, in 1919 they made over $900,000 which is the second most profitable year Indian ever enjoyed. But what happened in WW1 is that, basically, Indian committed its entire production to military use. There were very few civilian motorcycles made for about two years running. In fact there was an ad in one of the magazines, it said "civilian deliveries will have to wait." What this meant was Indian 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 Indian 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 were there were no Indian shops left. It wasn�t always easy to just go back into a city and get started again because you had given a 2-3 year head start to a rivals. 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.
Crooked Dealings 1920-45
One of the problems that 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 Motocycle 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 did it for less than that, they could save the difference. These kinds 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 $1 million had disappeared from the assets ledger of the Company in the previous 2-3 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 charged 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 Roger Bold Plan 1945-53
Coming out of WW2, 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 during Mr. Dupont�s tenure from 1930-45. Indian did make a lot of motorcycles for military forces of Allied nations in 1942-43, about 16,000 each year. But they made almost no motorcycles or very few in �44, not many in the first half of �45. 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 happened was a lot of the 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 financial roller coaster so he looked around for a buyer. He did manage to sell it in late �45 to Mr. 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 liaison 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 the ledgers of the Company, those dealerships didn�t belong to the Indian Motocycle 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. They 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 motorcycles but he kept building those traditional Indian motorcycles to keep the dealers alive while at the same time, he could plan for a new range of lightweight 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. But 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 because it was only 15 years later that Honda exploited the same idea. "You meet the nicest people on a Honda." The ads showed this rather attractive 35 year old woman coming out of the grocery store. She had her sack of groceries, she�d put them in 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 20-25%- overnight. So the motorcycles that Mr. Rogers was trying to build in the late 1940s (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 effort to save the Indian Motocycle 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 Indian�s 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 four years, 1950-53, there were only about 500 new Indians made each year. These were almost like a job shop 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 not really 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 till 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 there had been mismanagement in the WWI era and back in the 20's and the company could never recover from that. But I think its a tribute to the emotional appeal of the Indian and loyalty of its riders and dealers that Indian was able to keep its doors open as long as it did.
Indian Today
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 collectibles 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 the motorcycles you will see will be Indian. Interest in old Harley Davidsons have picked up lately but the thing is Indians became collector�s items in 1954. People knew that as soon as the last Indians were made, this is a collectible machine. So in 1964, what did you have if you had a 1953 Harley? Well, you just 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.
From WGBY An Interview with Jerry Hatfield
RALEIGH, N.C. — Indian Motorcycle Company, once a fierce competitor with Harley Davidson, is coming back into business, and its new home will be in North Carolina.Indian Motorcycle and Chris-Craft Corporation, a boat manufacturing firm that dates to 1874, said Thursday they will build new manufacturing facilities in Kings Mountain, N.C. Governor Mike Easley announced the new plants.
Both firms are owned by privately held Stellican, Ltd., an investment firm in London. Stellican bought Chris-Craft out of bankruptcy in 2001.
The original Indian Motorcycle went out of business in 1954. The new company said it would invest $23 million to open a motorcycle production facility. The assets of the firm had been purchased by the London group. Indian Motorcycle will occupy a plant once operated by International Paper. It plans to hire 167 people.
"Our primary goal is to return Indian Motorcycle Company to its rightful position as a premium motorcycle brand, selling beautifully designed, high quality products and delivering world-class service," said David Wright, Indian Motorcycle Company's president. "North Carolina offers us the skilled workforce and business-friendly atmosphere to make that happen."
An Indian brand motorcycle was featured in the 2005 feature film "The World's Fastest Indian" starring Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins played the role of a New Zealander who set speed records in the 1960s on a restored 1920 Indian motorcycle.
Indian Motorcycle brand production models are considered collector's items. Manufacturing dates back to 1902.
The company plans to introduce the "Indian Chief" motorcycle in the second half of 2007. The firm said it would begin putting together a "network" of dealerships starting early next year.
"We will apply the same practical and long-term approach to Indian as we have employed successfully at Chris-Craft," said Stephen Julius, chairman of both Indian Motorcycle and Chris-Craft. "We are confident we will repeat our success with Indian by remaining true to the rich heritage of this incredible brand and doing things slowly and thoroughly. We are certain that there is an important role for Indian in the future of the American motorcycle market.
The relocation of the firms from Sarasota, FL. is expected to create 807 new jobs over the next five years, Easley said.
Chris-Craft said it would move its yacht division to a former Daimler-Chrysler facility in Kings Mountain. The company plans to hire 640 people and to invest $19 million in its new plant.
"By choosing North Carolina, these companies offer proof that we have the skilled, knowledge-based workforce needed to support the growth and success of the boat and vehicle manufacturers in our state," Easley said in a statement.
"This state has a workforce with the skills we need to build boats," said Stephen Heese, Chris-Craft's president. "Former furniture makers and woodworkers are ideal employees for us."
Chris-Craft operations resumed in 2001.
Other partners participating in the recruiting of the companies included the N.C. Community College System, Cleveland County, City of Kings Mountain, and Duke Energy.
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 just 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've often been asked why I like the motorcycle. I never have come up with a good answer. 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.
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