The vintage motorcycles are back, with two showrooms in L.A. that are getting lots of attention from enthusiasts
At about ten minutes past 10 a.m. on the first day the store opened, a customer walked into the Indian Motorcycle dealership on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks and plunked down his credit card.
He had picked out the bike he wanted while peering through the window of the store the night before a two-tone, yellow and white Chief with its trademark Indian head sculpture perched on sleek, rounded fenders, and sparkling with chrome. The bike costs nearly $24,000.
Since that morning in May, many more customers have pressed their noses to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the dealership, the first to open in Los Angeles since Indian Motorcycle Co. resumed making bikes after being shut down for nearly a half century.
The store has sold about 65 bikes during that four-month period, an especially impressive number considering that most of the buyers had never ridden an Indian motorcycle before.
“A lot of people buying them are buying them because of the name,” said Tim Gailey, co-owner of the Indian Motorcycle Los Angeles outlet, who serves as vice president of operations. “How many companies can go dormant for 47 years and people still know the name?”
A Canadian native, Gailey had a dealership in Montana with another motorcycle company when he secured the rights to the Los Angeles territory. He picked the Ventura Boulevard location after going on a drive through the San Fernando Valley because he liked the facade of the store, a neo-Roman design that looks something like that of a Rodeo Drive boutique.
“I said, ‘Man, that would be the most beautiful motorcycle store because it wouldn’t look like a motorcycle store,'” Gailey said.
The Ventura Boulevard showroom is among the first 200 dealerships opened across the country since Indian Motorcycle resumed production last year. Gailey opened a second store on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Los Angeles last month.
So far, the store’s sales have been limited by the factory’s output a mere 1,000 motorcycles were made last year, and this year the company hopes to boost production to 4,000 bikes. But Indian Motorcycle Los Angeles has already caught on with motorcycle enthusiasts. Although Gailey demurs if asked, it’s been reported that Shaquille O’Neal bought one. So did Arnold Schwarzenegger. George Clooney has several.
“We all go to motorcycle meets and if you don’t have a Harley-Davidson, you shouldn’t show up,” said Jay Belson, president of ReMax on the Boulevard in Sherman Oaks and the owner of a new Indian Chief. “But since I bought this Indian, I haven’t been on the Harley. When I’ve taken it to the meets, I’m the star. Here you are in a meet, some (of the Harley riders) are freaked out with the (Indian’s) paint and chrome, and everybody wants to talk about my Indian.”
Authentic American brand
For the growing number of motorcycle riders, America had been a one-horse town, with Harley-Davidson Inc. the only U.S.-made ride. Indian’s homegrown legacy (the name was chosen in far different, less politically correct times to depict its distinctly American heritage) rivals that of its main competitor.
“What Indian enjoys is the ability to be an authentic American brand,” said Walt Behnke, senior vice president for marketing at Indian Motorcycle Co. “It was the racing rival to Harley-Davidson for most of its years. Many American companies have to make up that history. The burden on us is to live up to it.”
The original Indian Motorcycle Co., founded in 1901, predated the Model T Ford. In 1907, the New York City police bought the bikes to chase down runaway horses. (They also liked the left-hand throttle, which freed their right hands to draw their guns.) Pancho Villa rode one. The bikes became part of the war effort during both world wars. They broke competitive records and won numerous industry awards.
“We get guys who stand at the window and stare,” said Gailey. “You know why? They’re remembering. The history of the bike itself is phenomenal, so you get people who stand and stare and reminisce.”
Many baby boomers, who comprise most motorcycle riders today, remember stories told by their fathers and uncles about Indian bikes. So deeply are those memories etched in the minds of the World War II generation and their children that when Gailey opened his shop, neighbors brought in black-and-white photographs of their relatives posing with the bikes. Many now hang framed in the showroom.
But in 1953, the original Springfield, Mass.-based company went belly up after losing its competitive battle with the automobile and its chief rival, the Harley. Trademark rights to the company wound through the court system for years until just two contenders remained: Eller Industries Inc., a Niwot, Colo.-based company, and several Canadian investors who had acquired California Motorcycle Co., a tiny maker based in Gilroy, Calif.
Courtroom escapade
When the judge in a U.S. District Court in Denver asked the two companies to return with a prototype motorcycle, Eller showed up with a drawing. The guys from Gilroy rode a newly minted Indian, its engine revving, into the courtroom.
“Since the basis (of a trademark-right decision) is who can produce an operating vehicle, the one with the smoke and the noise won,” said Behnke.
The newly resurrected Indian Motorcycle Co. hired a mostly American management team and went to work, fueled by a growing market for bikes.
Since 1960, when about 60,000 motorcycles were sold in the United States, sales of motorcycles and all-terrain bikes have jumped to more than 800,000. The market continues to expand by about 20 percent each year, Behnke said.
“It’s more of a lifestyle than recreation,” Behnke said. “Particularly as Harley-Davidson defined it, you travel together, go to events together. It becomes this common bond, like boating or surfing.”
The company’s two styles are modeled after the original motorcycles with updated technology and V-Twin engines. The Scout, a smaller sports model, retails for about $19,500. The Chief, known in the industry as a “heavy cruiser,” sells for $23,900.
Indian Motorcycle expects to have about 300 dealerships by next year, when production is projected to increase to 25,000 units and the number of styles is to be expanded.
Unlike Harley-Davidson, Indian motorcycles were absent from the scene during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, when biking, on the tailwind of films like “The Wild One” and “Easy Rider,” became tainted with images of an underworld subculture.
“We’re not limited to a certain kind of consumer, so I think there’s a wide-open pasture for Indian to explore,” Behnke said.
Back at the Sherman Oaks showroom, Gailey has already expanded the store, leasing 1,500 square feet adjacent to the original 3,000-square-foot space for a clothing boutique with Indian-branded leather jackets, jeans, T-shirts and accessories. Clothing sales account for about 35 percent of the store’s net profits, Gailey said.
The interest in the clothing line is one more sign of the nostalgia surrounding the Indian name, and an indication of the promise of the rekindled brand, Gailey said.
“The legend wouldn’t die,” he said. “And now, with the growth of biking, we have another V-Twin motorcycle.”
