Indian Motorcycles - A Brief History
The founders of the company, which was originally termed the 'Hendee Manufacturing Company', have been George M. Hendee and Carl Oscar Hedstrom, a set of former bicycle racers who joined forces to produce a 1 ¾ horsepower bike. Sales began slowly, but soon increased giving the organization a solid platform to develop upon. These early bikes have been belt-driven and by 1903 were performing sufficiently to allow Hedstrom to make a new motorcycle speed record of 56mph.
Aurora of Illinois supplied the engine that will power the 'Diamond framed Single', which carried the rich red that will become synonymous with American indian. Introduced in 1902, gross sales rose to 32, 000 within 1913. 1907 saw the introduction of an V-twin which, along with Erwin 'Canonball' Baker would set many telephone long distance records culminating with a trip from San Diego to Nyc in a record time period of 11 days, 12 hours and ten minutes. As may be the case today, competition stimulated technical innovation and Indian went from strength to help strength, winning the Tropical isle of Man TT race in 1911. Not only that, but Indians complete second and third as well.
The Indian Chief and Scout appeared inside early 1920's and went on to become the flagships with the company. By this time period, both Hendee and Hedstrom had left this company. Both bikes won the admiration with the public, not only with regard to looks, but also because of their durability, hence the declaring, 'You can't wear available an Indian Scout, or its brother the Indian native Chief. They are built like rocks to adopt hard knocks; it's your Harleys that cause the grief'.
By 1930 Indian had teamed up with 'Dupont Motors' which ended the production of Dupont cars to position every ounce of energy and resource into the development of the American indian. Their links with that paint industry saw some sort of dramatic increase in color choice, with 24 available by 1934. This is a time when the distinctive Indian head-dress logo primary saw light of day over the tanks of the devices, and it wasn't long before the Indian factory became termed the 'Wigwam'.
By 1940, Indian native has almost rivalled its major competitor Harley Davidson within sales. The company additionally produced engineless bicycles, air conditioning equipment, aircraft engines in addition to many other lines. This year also saw the introduction of the skirted fenders which were to define Indians for years to come. Another innovation that arrived at this time was the sprung frame which made the device far superior to the Harley with the day. In its fundamental form, the Chief may well reach 86mph, but using a little tuning over 100mph had been possible.
Ralph B. Rogers was the leader of a consortium which bought a controlling interest in Indian in 1945, and on November 1st Dupont legally handed control to Rogers. Unfortunately Rogers discontinued your Scout to concentrate on models like the 149 Arrow, the Warrior 250 along with the Superscout 249. These bikes suffered from poor quality and a lack of development and by 1949 output had almost ground to a halt. Gilroy auto sales, Gilroy auto sales, Gilroy auto sales