The New Chief

The New Chief

Second coming or dishonest Injun?

WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS NEW INDIAN, WITH FINANCING OUT OF Canada and an S&S Harley-clone motor, to be built in Gilroy, California, self-proclaimed Garlic Capital of the World?

Introduced to investors, the press, industry types and various hangers-on at the Daytona Hilton during Bike Week, the 1999 “limited-edition” Chief is a handsome enough piece-once you get your sensibilities around the fact that the only thing the machine has in common with its Springfield, Massachusetts, predecessors is a nameplate and skirted fenders.

Old-line Wigwam afficionados may be spitting nails about all of this, but here’s my take, for what it’s worth: Compared to the cast of scofflaws and swindlers previously involved in resurrecting Indian, CEO Murray Smith and his merry band of backers appear as clean as your old Grandma’s lace doilies. For one thing, unlike prior resuscitation attempts, there’s some serious coin involved, much of it raised from established institutional lenders. If you believe the press releases, something like $50 million has been spent acquiring the rights to the Indian name, setting up an Indian Cafe in Toronto and purchasing the California Motorcycle Company in Gilroy, now renamed the Indian Motorcycle Company (CMC remains as a subsidiary and will continue to produce H-D clones on a limited basis). If someone has to have the Indian name, these guys at least seem like a good bet not to run off to the Grand Caymans, secretaries in hand and suitcases stuffed with greenbacks.

Oh, there is room for skepticism here. The Canadian group, after all, was already doing a good business selling Indian-logo sportswear; outright ownership of the trademark opens the path to worldwide clothing sales. The one hitch was the stipulation by a U.S. bankruptcy court that the trademark could only go to a bonafide motorcycle manufacturer. An all-new design from scratch would have required time and many millions of dollars, but take a mock-Hog, hang on valanced fenders, attach a Chief s-head running light and-/?rasTo/-insta-Indian.

The judge may have been convinced, but it remains to be seen if these new Chiefs are accepted by the marketplace as anything more than tarted-up Harley hybrids. As with the slew of clones already in circulation, resale value is a big question. As an example, a 1998 CMC bike was put on the block at the big Daytona auction. Originally sold for $20,000-plus, the bike was bid up to just $7000-barely half its reserve price-before being pushed offstage unsold.

Certainly having a proprietary engine in place of the S&S unit will help. That motor apparently is undergoing tests and should be ready for installation in the year-2000 Chief, though the company does its credibility no favors when it claims it will be rolling 40,000 machines a year by 2001. Currently, only Harley and Honda sell more than 40,000 streetbikes in the U.S.-and none of their models lists for the Chiefs $24,000!

Whether Indian becomes “the second-largest producer of heavy cruiser motorcycles in North America,” as its officials predict, or ends up as yet another melancholy entry in the protracted last chapter of a once-great American company, is an open question that only the next few years will answer. David Edwards