Well it looks as though Polaris has the new Indian Motorcycle Company revival going full steam. The new Chief and its variants seem to be doing well as they have a truly beautiful retro styled engine slotted into a decent heavy cruiser chassis with fairly unique looks. Not my cup of tea but I hope they do well with them.
Recently they announced the coming release of the new Indian Scout model with a 100 h.p. liquid cooled engine. This was certainly enough to make me take notice. Ever since then the internet has been buzzing with discussion about it. All of the Harley haters (and some of the “Big Twin” snobs) have popped up on Facebook and all of the forums predicting the end of the Sportster.

Normally I would not write about a motorcycle that I do not have some personal experience with and having never sat on one yet will not comment upon its performance as a motorcycle, but just by looking at the available specs and pictures I can say with absolute certainty that this new Indian is no threat to Sportster sales. I repeat the new Scout is no threat to the Sportster. Sure it may be a more modern engine, in fact when I first heard about it I really had high hopes, until I saw the chassis it was slotted into.
There is not anything really wrong with the chassis if it is what you like, the North Star company has some of the best engineers in the world, and it looks really good and probably handles very well for a power cruiser. But you are locked into what you have, sure there are different footpeg and handlebar options, but the frame & suspension are finished. To put mid controls or rearsets on this motorcycle would require extensive modification, possibly a whole new frame. Ditto for trying to chop it, rake it or anything else. This is a completely finished motorcycle with a high tech alloy frame, there is really not much left to do to it, and at present time not much you can do with it.

The new Scout is a power cruiser. Don’t think Sportster, think V-Rod, V-Max, & the dearly departed Honda Magna, this is the market segment that this new Indian plays to, and quite frankly it’s a rather limited market. Harley knows what they are doing with the Sporty, and they know that a big h.p. Sportster will not sell. They already tried with the XR1000 back in the eighties and they frequently collected dust on the showroom floors because they were unwanted and unloved.

Now THIS is a badass Harley!

Motorcycle magazines are another source of the speculation; normally they tend to treat U.S. manufacturers with kid gloves but are getting a kick out of fanning the flames of this potential rivalry. If it sells magazines more power to them.
But I digress let’s get back the Scout versus Sportster. As mentioned earlier I have not ridden a new Scout yet, but I have ridden dozens of Sportsters & believe it or not really like the way they ride and handle with the standard size wheels & tires, and some reasonably tall rear shocks. At this point in time the Sporty is still in a class by itself, Yamaha has made a good go of it with the Bolt but it still lacks street cred in some circles. It’s a cool bike but all of the other road pirates will pick on you for riding Jap crap.
Remember I mentioned earlier that the Scout seems to be a completely finished bike? Well the Sportster is not, and that is a very good thing. Sure you can buy your Sporty and leave it bone stock and have a nice enjoyable ride which will run on reliably nearly forever. But what fun is that? Here is the real advantage the Sporty has over every other motorcycle on the planet including the Motor Company’s own big twins, it is the most versatile two wheeled customizing platform to ever exist on the planet. You can make it into a chopper, bobber, street tracker, café racer, dual sport adventure bike, add bags & fairing for a touring bike, throw a wad of cash at the suspension & engine & create a canyon carver or a muscle bike / power cruiser, you can even race the damn thing if you want to. The factory has realized this and the have created several variants of the Sportster to take advantage of those wimps that don’t want to bleed on a bike in order to make it their own.
The new Scout look ready to kick ass & take names right out of the box but the Sportster is still the ultimate blank canvas for the garage artist.
Advantage Harley Davidson…

You see a motorcycle, I see art waiting to happen!

Please note any pictures not taken by yours truly were listed as “free to use and share” by Bing image search. If I have inadvertently used your copyrighted image please let me know & I will be glad to replace or remove them.