Scarcest Scout
Covid-19 sadly killed off Indian’s plans for the 2020 centenary of its iconic Scout model’s birth, to be celebrated with a series of global parties, with the result that it passed almost unnoticed. Still, the ongoing showroom success of what is the Minnesota firm’s best-selling current model since making its born-again debut in 2015 with its liquid-cooled 1133cc (69ci) 60 degree V-twin eight-valve engine, followed a year later by the entry-level Scout 60 with smaller 999cc (61ci) motor, and together hastening the demise of Harley’s air-cooled OHV Sportster, will have helped make up for that as far as the marque’s current owner Polaris is concerned.
A conservative but astutely managed Midwestern company, Polaris’ management today could hardly be more different than those who ended up running the original Indian Motocycle (sic) Company into the ground. After gradually reducing his slice of Indian equity as new investors were brought in to underwrite the company’s growth, co-founder and chief engineer Oscar Hedstrom had deserted Indian in 1913 – the year in which it made over 30,000 motorcycles, the most in its entire history prior to Polaris acquiring the marque in 2011.
Hedstrom was horrified at the nowadays illegal, but then permissible actions of Indian board members to ramp up the company’s stock values so as to make a financial killing, with his equally outraged co-founder George Hendee following him out of the door in 1916. That was the year a star Indian model was introduced, the legendary Powerplus whose side-valve 990cc 42 degree V-twin engine designed by Swedish immigrant Charles Gustafson, Jnr. was improbably both more powerful and quieter than rival IOE aka F-head models, remaining in production with few changes until 1924.
Indian used the Powerplus as the basis of the 41,000 Military bikes it produced under fixed-price contracts with the US Government from 1917-19, a deal which turned sour for the company as raw materials escalated in price, while its dealers were left with limited stocks, so that more profitable retail sales dropped significantly. Its Harley rival by contrast made just 15,000 Army bikes for US Armed Forces during the 18 months of US involvement in the
