Power-plus!
Go back 94 years and imagine the scene. A road tester arrives at the Indian experimental department after a hard, fast ride north following the Connecticut River, east along the Mohawk Trail, and then south down farm tracks and through woodlands to take him back to Springfield, Massachusetts. Charlie Gustafson, who designed the new V-twin side-valve engine, and Frank Weschler, in charge of the Iron Redskin after founders Hendee and Hedstrom had retired, stubbed out their cigarettes and walked out to meet him. “What does she go like?” asks Gustafson. “Man, this motor has power – plus!” replied the tester. You can almost see the light bulb switching on in Weschler’s brain. He needed a new name for a new Indian and this was it – the Powerplus!
It was not the first side-valve V-twin from Gustafson’s drawing board. He had designed one for Reading Standard, another pioneering American motorcycle manufacturer, but that was based on a Peugeot. Charlie was poached by Indian in 1909 and worked with Oscar Hedstrom on the development of his technically advanced engine with its pushrod operated overhead inlet valves and side exhaust valves. By
