Indian-Ducati 860 a sad story

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.