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24 | WheelsOfGrace.com | Issue 47 America's best-known motorcycle brand may be having some trouble at home. Indian Motorcycle's ability to rival the name Harley- Davidson in classic American motorcycle lore— combined with the versatility and experience of its parent company, Polaris Industries, in building machines for many different types of riders—presents perhaps the biggest challenge to Harley's reign in decades. The race for America's biker soul is revving up. An American Motorcycle Rematch Indian Motorcycle was founded in 1901, and Harley-Davidson two years later in 1903. Both companies built groundbreaking bikes, delivering motorcycles to police forces, racing them on the dirt track, providing a simple alternative to the automobile, and serving in both world wars. By 1953, however, Harley-Davidson had caught the post-war economic wave and Indian had not. Indian went bankrupt and shut down. Previous attempts to revive the brand have all failed, but since Minnesota-based Polaris bought the brand name in 2011, growth has been…well… explosive. Harley-Davidson still holds the lion's share of sales, with more than 50 percent of the U.S. market for big bikes, while Indian Motorcycle only recently broke into double digits. Indian sales are growing, however, and Polaris has thrown its full manufacturing and marketing support behind the brand after shutting down its popular Victory Motorcycles line. The experience Polaris gained building Victory bikes, its first foray into street cruisers after success building ATVs and snowmobiles, allowed the new Indian to hit the ground with the throttle wide open. "I recently rode a matte white Indian Chieftain on a tour of Florida, from Tampa down state highway 60 to route 1 up the Atlantic Coast to reach Cape Canaveral. The most appealing feature to people I met on the road might have been that the bike wasn't a Harley. Half the cruisers out there are Harleys, most of them black. Truckers, gas station attendants, and tollbooth employees were constantly commenting on the Indian bike and coming over for a closer look. Performance-wise, there is no doubt Indian is holding its own. The Chieftain's 111-cubic-inch (1,811 cc) Thunder Stroke V-Twin puts out 119 ft-lbs. of torque, smoking people off the line, providing plenty of pick-me-up for clean passes, and Indian Motorcycle Is Coming for Harley-Davidson's throne The Polaris-owned bike builder is establishing its foothold in American motorcycles By Jay Bennett and Peter Kaye 24 WheelsOfGrace.com Issue 47