I found this on Facebook, its a compilation of Burt Munro over the years

Burt Munro at speed video

Alan Newman (owner of the Indian MoCo 1970-1977) was in the process of making a deal with Ducati to produce 500cc, 750cc & 900cc bikes for the USA market. At the same time the USA started imposing import tariff taxes for USA based companies that manufactured overseas. Indian’s main production/assembly plant at this time was in Taiwan. They were using American, Japanese & European parts to assemble their bikes with. Indian’s main competition at the time (Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki, etc.) were not obligated to pay these additional taxes due to they are not USA based companies. These additional taxes, which would have to have then been added to the production cost and final sale price, caused Ducati to back out of the deal after only a few prototype bikes were built. The next year (1977) the Indian MoCo was forced to then declare bankruptcy. So in short … the USA taxed the Indian MoCo out of business.

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