Three classic shots, Pancho Villa in fighting form ready to have war with America on an American Indian, the second photo is one we have all had at one time or another a cop doing his duty booking Indian riders. The third shot is really nice I think, as I like Triumph’s as well as Indian’s the Gyronaut X-1 was going to be the first of many versions, Bob Leppan rode it in 1966 to an incredible 245.66 mph making it the worlds fastest motorcycle for a number of years, which Triumph used in their advertising into the seventies. The shot with Burt Munro really gives a feel to great era when people did everything themselves, most of the modern jockey’s rarely leave their air-conditioned trailers till the run is due to happen

Gyronaut X-1 link

For our overseas members that will find recent Bikie Law reforms in a State in Australia called Queensland draconian, any more than 3 people meeting together can be prosecuted as well as any patch clubs can be charged with an offence technically even when you’re not on a motorcycle. This photo above shows anomaly and you could put the local lawn bowls club, Boy Scouts in the same category as they wear patches and meet in larger groups than three!

Bart Simpson is right, out of the major players in the USA that have survived Indian’s were there 2 years before & the first with a V-Twin seven years later. As the Vincent -HRD Co said ” This is a Fact not a Slogan” although they were using the rest of the statement “The Worlds Fastest Standard Motorcycle is the Worlds Fastest Standard Motorcycle”. There are a lot of bruised ego’s out there at the moment, I notice Tim Aston’s latest review of the 2014 Indian Chief in H-D Heavy Duty Magazine is positive test on a 10,000 klm road test, seems the H-D folk are reeling on a machine that is the first real threat to the Tractor Co since 1953, the term “Metric Cruiser” has always used a cast-off line as somehow not being a problem or real opposition now this is changing, the great thing is that we have journalists that write factual reviews on products, unfortunately in the not to distant past this was’nt always true. Your editor Guy Allen producing your Smoke Signals is an experienced professional motorcycle journalist and always produces a great column in Motorcycle Trader Magazine and after reading his work over the years is always spot-on and not influenced by large corporates, so you get factual reviews, keep up the good work

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The amazing thing about this article is the fact they mention that with 500 x 16 tyres this machine was capable of traversing terrain that other vehicles couldn’t particularly sand, I wonder where all the Willy’s Jeep”s were that day

In 1953 Indian had lots to sell, Big Eighty cube Chiefs, Norton’s, Excelsior, & Vincent to name a few. The centre of attraction in this era is not the big Chief but the lowly Papoose which was only another Excelsior with decals and a Indian horn, still in all there were quite a few machines for this salesman and woman to sell, as in 1949 there was nothing for sale, things seemed to be looking up for the Springfield  company but it took till 1969 till Indian Sales finally ceased.