One of the many IIRA members Dave Morgan from the N.T and his new 111

I took a visit to Indian in Elizabeth St last Saturday to see how they were going despatching all the pre ordered 111’s they were over 140 and still had heaps to go. Sadly an eager customer was standing wanting to order one and unfortunately will have to wait till April for a Chief Vintage, although I believe a few Chieftan’s are still available now. One thing I was told was that they are now accepting trade-ins and not surprisingly all those ” Solid Gold” Harley-Ferguson Owners are realizing scrap steel is worth $30 a ton and are the most offered bike as a trade-in, and not many people want them as they are “a dime a dozen” Just Bikes Magazine and Motorcycle Trader Magazine will attest to this as well by flicking through the pages of current editions Just Bikes 165 pages had a minimum of two on each page sometimes up to five. In 1972 BSA went broke with full order books for bikes they could not afford to make, Harley make 245,000 units a year and are required to make at least 190,000 to break-even, Indian is only making 15,000 units this year with double to triple these figures over the next couple of years, in theory 50,000 Indian’s could break H-D. There is a hell of a lot of H-D’s around at the moment and they are trying to sell into new markets such as India to increase sales volumes, this could be a sign of cracks as the V-Rod was supposed to be a savior but was not, they need every sale to count, Polaris has a small stake in the motorcycle industry that Victory & Indian is a mere 4.5% of their company returns, the next couple of years may see H-D in the same position as BSA

In your next Smoke Signals Magazine there will be an article on improving braking for 1940-52 Springfield Chief’s one thing that consistently crops up on modifications or even standard parts are variations on bike to bike, note the 1947 Chief of Chris Horner’s & my own 1948 Vindian how the valance on each guard (fender) is positioned, on the 1947 the Twin Leading brake conversion involved drilling a 1.1/2 hole to let the rear arm through. The fender valance varies through the sheet metal from 4-6mm (without body filler) which can “cock” the plate slighty and cause a scraping noise which happens on standard plates this involves a washer on the locating bolt sometimes to keep it all lined up

Hot off the Press a new Indian Scout will be announced on 12-17 August 2014 many people have been waiting for a smaller Indian well it’s happening, maybe the Four will be next

A couple of years (1978) Mike Hailwood won the I.O.M on the Sports Motorcycles Ducati built by Steve Wynn this was dismantled and over the years at least four are known to exist, a similar thing happened when Hailwood made his comeback in Australia at Winton Raceway in 1976 I was a this meeting & the Manx he rode was Charlie Edwards machine a “double knocker” 500cc. After Hailwood was tragically killed in a Motorway accident in UK the Harwell Club decided to run a Memorial Race, they could have feilded a race with all the so-called claimants that reckoned they had Hailwood”s Manx these ranged from post war plunger rear frame versions up! So we come to Vincent’s out of the 73 Series A pre-war Twins that were built 82 are going, out of the handfull of Black Lightnings built (under 20) around 90 are still going strong the 56 Thruxton Bonneville’s that were built of which one made it to Australia around 200 have still made a presence worldwide, undoubtably 750SS “Green Frame” Ducati’s of which under 200 were made are still all going, we won’t go on now but we have Burt Munroe’s Fastest Indian there is one at Hammer Hardware Invercargill N.Z then there is this other one on the website below plus the ones that were built for the movie, seems to me these days even the Mona Lisa is’nt safe

http://www.barnfinds.com/worlds-fastest-indian/#WlgHl7GQ4fwiWFbW.01

Happy New Year, and I hope the resolutions you decided on last week are on track, these are many and varied at this time of year from doing work on the Indian, to loosing a few pounds both of these were on my list last year & strangely enough are still there. The photo above of the woman working on the ACE that I “lifted” from the Indian Club in Prague should give you inspiration as I hate working on motorcycles on the side of the road as most of us do in an emergency. We have plenty on this year with the calendar “chock-a-block” with Rallies, Runs, & Social Events, the first is The Midnight Express Run on 18-19 then the Association Monthly Meeting on 28th hastily followed by the Sunday run on 2nd Feb which gets us up the The Lakes & Craters on 15-16th and the following weekend is the 2nd Gypsy Tour Follow the Murray starting 22nd and finishing in March! This is very heavy going so time to get the spanner”s blazing.