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Wade Thiel·
Indian Motorcycle
··10 Comments·1 min read

Indian Is Working on a Harley-Davidson Road Glide Competitor With a Liquid-Cooled Engine

Indian liquid-cooled

Get Ready for a War, Harley

With all the issues Harley has the last thing it needs is more competition. That’s exactly what Indian Motorcycle is giving the company a new bike that could use the name, Raptor. It will compete with the Harley Road Glide. It will get a new liquid-cooled engine and a frame-mounted fairing.

According to Motorcycle.com, the motorcycle appeared on various motorcycle message boards and forum website. Indian requested the images be taken down. You can still find those images online if you look hard enough. Rather than piss off Indian by posting the images, I decided to take Motorcycle.com’s route and showcase some patent drawings of the bike’s engine.

The patent for this engine actually comes from a design that was to be used in motorcycles from the brand Victory. Polaris Industries had its own name on the patents originally. This is different than other Indian Motorcycle patents. That means Polaris transferred it over to Indian.

The engine outlined in the patent filing is a 60-degree V-Twin with a single-overhead-cam and four valves per cylinder. There’s a water pump on the left side of the engine for liquid cooling. Motorcycle.com was able to work out through an unnamed source that the engine will have a 1770 cc displacement and connect to a six-speed transmission. It will put out somewhere around 120 hp.

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It would make sense for Indian to use one of the names it recently trademarked, like Renegade or Raven. Motorcycle.com said its unnamed source indicated Raptor was the name of the motorcycle. The publication said it’s unclear at this time if that’s an internal codename or if it will actually be used for the motorcycle.

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Wade Thiel
Wade Thiel divides his time between motorcycles, cars, and the outdoors. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, and tries not to let the cold winter months get him down too much.
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10 Comments

  1. Great product VICTORY but who would trust Polaris bot ro cut & run again. No confidence in any polaris product .

    1. You have to be a chick. Only chicks want promises. Unlike with the Indians, they just weren’t selling enough Victorys to justify it. Polaris has done wonderful things with the Indian brand (though a water-cooled, frame-mounted fairing is stupid). I love my Chief Vintage. It’s a great product, they’re selling well, there’s nothing to worry about.

      1. You must be a salesman only a salesman would rationalize something like this. Old Indians cool. New Indians cheap imitation that typically look ridiculous because retro is only cool when the thing having a retro look is actually old anything else is a cheap imitation. They are way over priced for what you get and they depreciate faster than a ice cream cone on a hot summer day.

        Just can’t be bothered with them.

  2. I hope they’re not faking it up to look like an air cooled flathead, or covering it in plastic. My opinion, for what it’s worth is, make the metal look nice and leave it out where the folks can see it.

  3. Waiting on more info about the Indian
    Harley is putting my generation to the way side , and wanting to focus on this new generation, that’s a lazy bunch of !
    So Harley make your bed , cause this Old Fart will go to Indian

    1. Been on HD’s since returning from overseas 45 years ago, and a new RG that I love under my butt now. However, I do like my LQ cooled drifter on Tx 100°+ stretches, which would pique my interest in Indians version. I’ve had a couple of ’48’s, still have one. Polaris started business 65 years ago, the year after Indian folded. I don’t think they’re going anywhere. It was great business to meld what Polaris learned from Victory in rescuing Indian. Indian’s growth is slow but steady. I’m not too scared to invest in the new LQ cooled, frame mounted faired bike. See the engine drawings? No fake flatheads to draw silly negative comments. Just saying….

  5. Was woundering how long it would take before experimental Victory product would flyer over.
    Was kind of hoping to see ” kingpin” update in Indian garb though.

  6. That’s a nice engine drawing. I’ll wait to it on a bike before drawing conclusions about appearance.

  7. Little late, Harley has been using liquid cooled engines in their 114/117 Touring models for the last 3 years. Also an 8 valve engine.

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