From a historical perspective, this excellent 1908 Indian Twin represents a defining moment for the company that built it, as well as the larger culture of American motorcycling. Carl Oscar Hedstrom, the Swedish-born engineer and co-founder of Indian Motocycles, was a catalyst for the development of the motorcycle at the turn of the 20th century. Hedstrom, along with his fellow Indian co-founder George Hendee, had both found success in the wildly popular sport of bicycle racing. Given the sport’s reliance on teams of tandem-pacing cyclists, incorporating and experimenting with new gasoline-powered engines was a natural extension. A notable pacing cyclist, Hedstrom was at the forefront of developing motorized tandem pacing machines, branded as the Typhoon pacer. He then took the lessons learned developing his DeDion-type pacing machines to create a single-rider, road-going machine of his own design, the first Indian Motocycle in 1901. With the Indian’s refined engineering and elegant simplicity, Hedstrom established himself as a leader in a new industry exploding with talent. At the 1904 Carnival of Speed in Ormond Beach, Florida, Hedstrom arrived with an odd, 2-cylinder motorcycle to compete against Glenn Curtiss and his Hercules twin. Hedstrom’s machine connected two single-cylinder engines at the crankpin. At the same time, Curtiss had designed a 2-cylinder engine in which the cylinders sprouted from a shared bottom end, America’s first V-twin motorcycle. Curtiss’ proved the better design, and Hedstrom quickly returned to Springfield to begin work on his own V-twin design. On July 30th, 1904, Hedstrom unveiled the first Indian V-twin at an event on Sachuets Beach, Rhode Island, winning the top prize, followed in November by a record-setting run at the Eagle Rock Hill Climb in Orange, New Jersey. Hedstrom’s new twin was built on the same diamond-frame “camelback” chassis as Indian’s wildly popular single but with a 42-degree, 39 CI (633cc) IOE V-twin integrated into the seat tube. The prototype continued to demonstrate its capability at events throughout 1905, and in 1906, a “double-cylinder” competition model was listed in the sales brochure. In 1907, the first standard production 3.5 HP V-twin Indian Roadster was offered, featuring Indian’s patented twist-grip throttle and timing advance controls, cartridge-spring fork, a Brooks leather saddle, coil and battery ignition, and a rear coaster brake. In 1908, the final year of the “camelback” twin boasted a slightly improved 5 HP engine for the Roadster, as well as a 7 HP“monkey- on-a-stick” racing configuration. Not only did Indian’s twin, like this gorgeous, older restoration example from 1908, represent one of the first V-twin American motorcycles in history, but its success as a brand helped establish the format as the country’s preferred engine configuration for its simplicity, efficiency and power. F242 1908 INDIAN TWIN
