Indian history can mean Cannonball Baker making a 10,000-mile transcontinental run on a lightweight twin in 1914, or Indian’s fabulous “Wrecking Crew” waging legendary battles with Harley’s factory flat track teams of the 1940s. As of now there are only four in Canada: Calgary, Edmonton, Oakville and Montreal, where they will start at MSRP $12,999.īut if the Indian marque has historical and emotional currency, what history are we really discussing? If it’s the story of the Chief, then the discussion must be about big bikes booming down American highways, fully loaded with the rider comfortably perched on a broad saddle. That issue is now resolved with last year’s Chiefs, and the 2015 Scout, which will be in dealers in four colours by the end of 2014-that is, assuming you can find a dealer in a city near you. The stage has long been set for Indian’s return, all that has been missing since 1953 is a quality product. Then, there’s Indian, a brand with the history boxes fully ticked. Victory does not have the benefit of history on its side-it’s really just that simple. It seems like Polaris has been chasing Harley’s market share for a long time, first with its line of Victory bikes, and now with Indian, a brand that we’re often reminded was “America’s first motorcycle.” To stay in lockstep with Harley requires some tricky footwork, and while the Victory brand is of very high quality the marque never has quite been able to make the necessary emotional appeal that might win over a traditional Harley customer. History may side with Indian through the precedent of Pappy Hoel, but the streets now belong to Harley.The Scout joins this turf war along with last year’s Chiefs and Chieftain, as well as the 2015 Roadmaster, a luxury touring Chieftain variation, which was introduced two days before the nails were pulled from the Scout’s crate. Indian country from Harley-Davidson, which is by far and away the dominant marque when summer brings the rally thousands to South Dakota. Indian Motorcycles is now brand-managed by Polaris, an American industrial giant on a mission: to reclaim Sturgis as Ransom is in Sturgis this evening to help visually drive home the message that Indian Motorcycle is inextricably woven into the very fabric of America, and there are few places more red, white, and blue than Sturgis, the fabled Black Hills and the 74-year-old Rally, which finds its origins in the legacy of 1930s Indian dealer Pappy Hoel who first sponsored the Jackpine Gypsies Motorcycle Club and their scrambles and hill climbs that brought Sturgis worldwide fame. He represents a slice of genuine old-time, county fair Americana, and that is precisely the point of his being here. There are other celebrities on hand this evening, including Mark Wahlberg, but they pale in comparison to Ransom whose dress, Vaudevillian mannerisms, and death-defying trick rides are a direct link to the traveling circuses and broadly exaggerated entertainers of the early 20th century. Dressed in a white shirt with bowtie, and tan breeches tucked into black knee-high riding boots, Charlie’s quite the character: equal parts old-time carnival barker and 1920s barnstormer. When velocity and angle have finally reached their most precarious points, it’s then that Charlie will begin his antics, moving from one position to another on the bike as it continues to wildly revolve, flamboyantly extending his arms to the crowd, and mocking the presence of death with ironic poses. That guess was confirmed by evening’s end.Īs the guessing continued, a pony-tailed and heavily tattooed showman named Charlie Ransom was strutting and waving on the one stage where soon he would enter a large cylindrical structure called the Wall of Death, climb aboard a Scout-his own are of the vintage variety-and whir like mad around the cylinder’s wooden staves, rotating in a rapidly ascending arc to the very top of the wall until inertia, like a marble in a centrifuge, holds him and the bike in a gravity-defying perpendicular angle. Behind the security fence are two grand stages, filming lights, boom mikes, platters of food, tubs of cold beer, speakers pounding out good times tunes and a hundred or more of us “VIPs” who’ve been invited to witness the uncrating of several very large red and blue boxes containing-in our best guess-the new 2015 Indian Scout. Indian Motorcycle Company has fenced off a solid block on busy Lazelle Street-in the heart of the action. It’s a clear, warm August evening in Sturgis, South Dakota during the early days of the Sturgis Rally that annually swells this otherwise sleepy town of 6,000 to the breaking point. New Scout on Patrol Indian Motorcycles Scout introduces the latest threat to the states quo.
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