Jay Leno spends time with Indian motorcycles new and old

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Jay Leno has had plenty of cool cars roll through his garage lately (including the 2015 Ford Mustang and the Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer), but every once in a while, he checks out vehicles of the two-wheeled variety. Such is the case with this episode of Jay Leno's Garage, where the funnyman gives us a quick history of Indian Motorcycles before taking a spin on the company's newest cruiser.

Now owned by Polaris, Indian is making another comeback in the motorcycle business, and a company exec and designer help Leno show off the reborn company's new line. Although these are modern bikes designed from the ground up, they still share styling cues with iconic Indian bikes from years past and feature air-cooled engines designed by Polaris.

In addition to the new bikes, this episode of JLG features a handful of classic Indians from the '40s, but there's also a replica of Burt Munro's land speed record 1920 Indian Scout, which was the basis for the 2005 film The World's Fastest Indian. Scroll down to check out the whole episode, and head over to Jay's Garage for some great pictures of all the bikes.

Continue reading Jay Leno spends time with Indian motorcycles new and old

Jay Leno spends time with Indian motorcycles new and old originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 09 Jan 2014 12:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The World’s Fastest Indian revisited [w/video]

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Indian Spirit of Munro replica

Polaris Industries, the company that until recently was probably best known for its ATVs and snowmobiles, bought Indian Motorcycle in 2011. With that purchase it plans to challenge Harley-Davidson for the emotions, and the Benjamins, of the classic American motorcycle rider. The Thunder Stroke 111 is the engine that will power the revival, and to celebrate the new V-Twin the company produced a tribute to what may be Indian's most famous bike, The World's Fastest Indian.

That was the name of the movie and the real-life episode that saw New Zealander Burt Munro break the land-speed record for under-1,000-cc bikes on the Bonneville Salt Flats on a 1920 Indian Scout streamliner.

The tribute to the man and the bike is called "The Spirit of Munro," a custom streamliner built to house the Thunder Stroke 111 and ridden by Todd Eagan across a California dry lake bed. It was built by Jeb Scolman of Jeb's Metal & Speed in Long Beach, California, and as you can see in the two short films below, both the engine and the bike are rather cool.

Continue reading The World's Fastest Indian revisited [w/video]

The World's Fastest Indian revisited [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 12 Jul 2013 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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