1940s: A World at War

Indian Motorcycle Serves Its Country

From 1940 until 1945, Indian Motorcycle focused its efforts on contributing to the Allied cause in WWII, at first building motorcycles for the French government and, starting in 1941, producing the Model 841 for the U.S. Army. Very few bikes were built for consumers during this time.

In 1945, The Du Pont brothers sold the company to Ralph B. Rogers. Rogers also purchased the Torque Manufacturing Co., in part to utilize the talents of former Indian Motorcycle engineer G. Briggs Weaver, who worked for Torque and was designing several models Rogers wanted Indian Motorcycle to produce.

The first post-war lineup consisted only of the Indian Chief as design and production were ramped up for consumer models. In 1948, new vertical twin 440cc Indian Scout models and vertical single 220cc Indian® Arrow® models were introduced to compete with the growing number of lightweight foreign imports.