Posted on 11/23/2006 1:56:14 PM PST by martin_fierro
Two classic brands are cruising for a comeback
The two Harvard Business School classmates who resurrected Chris-Craft have a new plan to bring Indian Motorcycle back from the brink. Can this icon be saved?
Fortune's Eugenia Levenson reports
FORTUNE Magazine
By Eugenia Levenson, Fortune reporter
November 23 2006: 8:12 AM EST
(Fortune Magazine) -- In a tiny hotel screening room in Miami, 20 friends and colleagues crowded around Stephen Julius and Steve Heese. It was February 2005, and they were there to watch a prerelease version of a film called "The World's Fastest Indian." The movie featured Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins as the New Zealander who set a land-speed record on an Indian Scout motorcycle in the 1960s, but the group had gathered to see the film's real star: the bike itself.
When credits rolled, the room sprang to a standing ovation. For Heese and Julius, Indian's new owners, the good news was that the fabled brand still resonated. The bad news? Indian, which the pair had bought out of bankruptcy a year earlier, wasn't exactly ready for its close-up.
Founded in 1901, Indian beat Harley-Davidson to market by two years and invented the brawny "cruiser" class of bikes that defined American motorcycle style. Yet poor management after World War II pushed the company into bankruptcy in 1953, and production of all Indian motorcycles halted for nearly half a century. Efforts to resuscitate Indian in the late 1990s, first by a Canadian investor group and then by a Boston-based private-equity firm, ended in Chapter 11.
< -- SNIP -- >
Indian's first model - the Chief - won't get to market till late 2007, so the turnaround is just beginning. But one thing's for sure: For Julius and Heese, it's already been a great ride.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
I see you haven't spent much time in Frisco's Tenderloin district. >:-}
Here's the Norton website:
http://www.nortonmotorcycles.com/
I remember back in the days when my brother was an outlaw. One of the guys got an Indian and it was like he had founf the Holy Grail. They spoke of it in hushed reverence.
I'm afraid that whoever owns the Indian trademark this time will have to do better than cobbling together a collection of aftermarket parts that amounts to nothing more than a copy of an obsolete Harley with valanced fenders (Which old time Indian riders didn't like much anyway) and an Indian sticker on the gas tank.
yeah - that Dupont family sure knows how to screw things up (sarcasm) - more likely was the government choose the HD-WLA over the Indian version for the war contract - the Company peaked twice in my opinion - first with the 101 scout series - '28 through '31, and later from 46'-'53 with the Chiefs
Its possible today to buy a near complete re-popped Chief
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