Finding a 1942 Indian Chief is an extraordinarily rare happening. The seventh Chief off the line in 1942 and bearing styling cues more akin to a 1941 model, this ’42 Chief is beautifully restored both cosmetically and mechanically. Painted in Seafoam Blue and black, it is a stunning machine with nickel-plated cylinders and the large-diameter wheels and leaf-spring forks of the prewar Chiefs, which gives them a lighter and more elegant silhouette. Furthermore, the engine of this bike was built by Mark Jacobs, a well-known Indian expert in Northern California.
While the Chief name is synonymous with Indian, the Springfield factory took 20 years to deliver its first model of that name in 1921. The Chief endures on Indian’s Big Twins through the present day, and it has eclipsed the Scout and the Four as the first impression for the brand. The 1921 Chief was a fast and solid motorcycle using the side-valve Powerplus engine and 3-speed gearbox.
The Chief was completely redesigned in 1932, after Indian was purchased by DuPont. The new Chief now wore the streamlined sheet metal of its smaller brother the Scout, and it adopted the excellent handling of its smaller brother as well with a better-balanced chassis. More than 2,000 Chiefs were sold in 1932, making them the most popular motorcycle in the U.S. in the darkest year of the Great Depression. The Chief became more beautiful and more streamlined in the DuPont years, which were truly the glory days of the factory, as well as its most profitable. The 1939 Chief marked the end of one era, the last of the rigid-frame Chiefs, as big changes were coming, even though the design was at a pinnacle of Art Deco beauty.
For 1940, Indian introduced a completely new chassis with plunger rear suspension for the Chief (the Scout got plungers in ’41), and the company completely redesigned the sheet metal with radical, deep-skirted fenders designed by Briggs Weaver. The new Indians were tremendously stylish and a real departure from any other motorcycle in the industry. There was simply no other machine styled like the Indian; the company had taken the streamlining craze to its apex, and the brand was forevermore linked to those deep skirts.
There’s something very special about these early 1940s Chiefs with their sharp front fender, leaf-spring front fork (dropped postwar) and simple cast Indian badge on the tank. It’s one of the most elegant motorcycles ever built, and this one benefits from a stunning restoration.
