#ChiefDarkHorse

One hundred years ago, in 1921, Indian Motorcycle launched the Indian Chief. At the time, nobody could have imagined what a cultural – and motoring – icon that bike would turn out to be. A century on and a lot has changed since then, including the rise and fall and rise again of the Indian Motorcycle company. But today marks an important day, as Indian celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Chief with a complete revamp and three new models: the Chief, Chief Bobber, and the Super Chief.

The big news is the new FTR1200 Indian revealed last week; the bigger news is how close to production-ready it looks, complete with lights and carbon-fiber bodywork, which may have to give way to plastic on a real production version. Indian’s Gary Gray says they built it to see what the public reaction would be, but I think the public had already reacted as soon as they built the FTR750 race bike, which was wildly successful. The Wrecking Crew was on hand to pull the cover off the “concept” bike.