WHERE LEGENDS LIVE ON
1970 Indian Velocette Thruxton 499cc
The Indian company had kept itself afloat in 1953 after the demise of its traditional V-twin Chief, by distributing first Matchless and then Royal Enfield motorcycles in the USA, the Enfield's alone being badged as Indians.
When the Royal Enfield deal ended, the firm went back to distributing Matchless, whose parent company Associated Motor Cycles (AMC) had bought the rights to the Indian name in 1960. The Berliner Corporation took over AMC distribution in the USA in 1963 upon which the brand name Indian vanished. In the late 1960s Floyd Clymer, publisher of Cycle magazine and an ex-Indian dealer, attempting to revive it in collaboration with Friedl Munch in Germany. Under Clymer's auspices the Indian name did appear on several other (mainly with Royal Enfield engines) prototypes, a range of two-stroke mini-bikes and the model for which the Springfield marque is best remembered: the Indian Velo.
Clymer updated the Velocette 500 single using a lightweight chassis built by Leopoldo Tartarini's Italjet Moto Srl company of Castel San Pietro Terme near Bologna, and Italian cycle parts. The completed bike weighed 45lb less than the "real" Venom. Launched in 1969, Clymer's hybrid used the 499cc Venom (VM) engine in both stock and hi-po Thruxton (VMT) configurations, yet although the model was undeniably stylish, it arrived too late to save either Indian or Velocette, and when Clymer died in 1970 the project died with him. Estimates of the number of Indian Velos produced range from 100 to 250 with only 4 being the Thruxton variant like the example seen here.