Today in motorcycle history, September 19, 2003

          

  The end of WWII brought joy to the world except on Worthington Street in Springfield, Massachusetts.  During The War, the US Army requested experimental motorcycle designs suitable for desert fighting. In response to this request, Indian designed and built the 841. Approximately 1,056 models were built.  Approximately 1,054 would sit in the warehouse fighting off dust instead of Germans. The Indian 841 was tested by the Army, but even though the motorcycle was adopted for wider military use it was determined that the Jeep was more suitable for the roles and missions for which these motorcycles had been intended.

 

  In 1945, a group headed by Ralph B. Rogers purchased a controlling interest of the company.  On November 1, 1945, duPont formally turned the operations of Indian over to Rogers.

  Under Rogers' control, Indian discontinued the Scout and began to manufacture lightweight motorcycles such as the 149 Arrow, the Super Scout 249, both introduced in 1949, and the 250 Warrior, introduced in 1950.  Production of traditional Indians was extremely limited in 1949, and no 1949 Chiefs are known to exist.

  The manufacture of all products was halted in 1953.

 

  Continuing the trend, The Indian Motorcycle Company of America was formed from the merger of nine companies (yes, I said nine!), including manufacturer California Motorcycle Company (CMC) and IMCOA Licensing America Inc., which was awarded the Indian trademark by the Federal District Court of Colorado in 1998. The new company began manufacturing motorcycles in 1999 at the former CMC's facilities in Gilroy, California, better known as the "Garlic Capital of the World".  The first "Garlic Indian" model, I mean "Gilroy Indian"model was a new design called the Chief (hmm, imagine that).  Scout and Spirit models were also manufactured from 2001.  These bikes were initially made with off-the-shelf S&S engines, but used the 100-cubic-inch (1,600 cc) Powerplus engine design from 2002 to 2003.

  The Indian Motorcycle Corporation went into bankruptcy and ceased all production operations in Gilroy on September 19, 2003.