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Posted by John Seidts on Monday, December 15, 2008 at 18:01:42 :
In Reply to: Crunching Numbers posted by copey on Monday, December 15, 2008 at 10:35:31 :
In 1953, the Indian Motorcycle Co. ceased production of their product in Springfield Massachusetts. Their new products were made in England and were actually Enfield motorcycles given American sounding names like "Tomahawk" and "Brave". The company was in business for many years, had their share of labor troubles, problematic government contracts (state and federal) and a declining domestic market for the type of motorcycles they were known for- heavy, mid to high horsepower bikes that were close in price and maintenance cost to cars that were rolling off the production lines at the time.
The choice to go with Enfield bikes stemmed from a decision by the company after WWII to exploit cheap labor in the recovering countries of Europe to build "light weight" motorcycles (more like motor scooters) that were closer to what people wanted at the time for a two-wheel play toy. This was also encouraged by the US Government as part of its reconstruction efforts of the Economic Recovery Plan, also known as the Marshall Plan. The company imported a large range of different European marques from 1946 to 50 and sold them through their dealerships. After the domestic market for their traditional products collapsed due to the baby boom and other corporate failures, the logical choice was to continue with the successful cheap imports and just badge them with "Indian" instead of re-tooling and producing them in the US. This also had the additional advantage of getting rid of their domestic labor problems.
Well, it was downhill for Indian from there. European companies outbuilt what Enfield manufactured, imported them directly, and Harley Davidson captured the first post WWII lightweight market in the US with the Harley Hummer. It didn't help that Indian tried to build motorcycles ahead of their true time- they were moving in the right direction with the lightweights in 1949 (Indian 249 Scout, Indian Arrow- true Springfield Indians that were visionary) but had some terrible engineering that sank the chances of the bikes. Indian really ceased as a working concern in 1963.
So here we were in the early 1960's. Indian dealers were a pretty hardy bunch, most of whom had been with the company for a lifetime. Some had rebelled against the Enfield bikes, and a good percentage of them had become independent motorcycle dealers. Now enter a company that had a new product. It was appropriate for the time, had great engineering, good technical support, and was affordable. The company had an affinity for Indian because their owner had owned one in the 1930's and loved the bike. So they quietly picked up a large number of former Indian dealers and did extremely well. This company was then, and still today, known as Honda. Honda of course started with Motorcycles, and has wound up in everything else up to Spacecraft and Robotics, not to mention giving the Big Three a run for their money. They are one of the most powerful industrial concerns in the world and are pushing technology forward at a very fast rate.
There is a lot of debate about the big three bailout, but as I hope I have demonstrated here, you have to be careful what you let in the door with the demise of a company. I really believe we need to support out whole manufacturing infrastructure- from corporate to facilities to labor to suppliers. If we don't, we're going to be in the same boat with manufacturing as we are in with foreign oil- at the mercy of foreign forces and not self-determining our own destiny. We need to save the Big Three, their labor and technology pool, and help them find new direction.
BTW, despite their terrible, labor baiting, outsourcing demise, I still love my Indian Motorcycles. INDIAN MOTORCYCLES FOREVER!
John K. Seidts, 15 Dec 2008
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