Indian files trademarks for two new bikes
Indian Motorcycles continues to push forward, with trademark filings for two new motorcycles.
These days, government bureaucracies are the biggest tattle-tales in the moto-biz. When the world finds out about an upcoming motorcycle model, it’s almost always through a regulatory agency in charge of emissions testing, or patents, or trademarks. This time, public information from patent offices in the US and Australia have tipped two new bikes from Indian. One bike is called the Pursuit, and the other is named the Guardian.
Sadly, that’s all we know for now—the names are protected by trademark, but the filings don’t indicate whether these bikes are all-new sport tourers, electric superbikes, or scooters. However, since we haven’t seen Indian teasing any new platforms since the Challenger was released, it’s almost certain these machines are both mutations of existing bikes in Indian’s lineup.
Right now, Indian has four main lines: There’s the Scout series, with Indian’s lowest prices and basic cruiser styling (no baggers here!). There’s the FTR1200 series, ostensibly based on Indian’s flat track machines, but a much more bloated design in reality. There’s the Chief lineup, with baggers, touring bikes and also stripped-down roadsters, all based around the same air-cooled V-twin engine. And, last summer, Indian brought out the Challenger; for now, the only bikes in this line are baggers, powered by liquid-cooled V-twins.
Most likely, the Challenger line will supplant the Chief in the near future, as it’s getting harder for air-cooled, big-bore bikes to pass emissions testing. It would very much make sense to see the Pursuit and Guardian based on the Challenger, especially if Indian is looking to bring out more stripped-down cruisers based on that design.
It’s also somewhat possible Indian is building police bikes based on some machine in its line, as the Pursuit and Guardian names would hint at that. In past years, Indian tried very hard to wrestle the police bike market away from Harley-Davidson, and though we haven’t heard much of it lately, it’s possible Polaris sees the MoCo as being weakened at the moment, and might be planning a machine to take some more of those law enforcement sales.
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