Springfield, Mass. – The Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company has been around off and on and in various guises since 1901, but its popular Scout line of entry-level bikes didn’t come about until 1920. To celebrate the Scout’s 100th birthday, Indian announced on Sept. 3, 2019 it is releasing a couple of special models to go alongside its usual complement of Bobbers, Sixtys and standard Scouts.
The two special Indian models are called the Scout Bobber Twenty and (rather appropriately ) the 100th Anniversary Scout. Both trims are more or less just appearance packages, but we’re especially into the look of the Bobber Twenty, which is meant to evoke the original 1920 G-20 Scout, a model later made famous by land speed racer Burt Munro — subject of the film The World’s Fastest Indian.
These new bikes and the rest of the 2020 Scout lineup get a few tweaks to their technical specs that should go a long way to improve their performance and make them even nicer to ride. From a rider’s perspective, the most significant change comes to the Scout’s brakes. The 2020 model gets upgraded to floating rotors and also gets new calipers and a new master cylinder.
This brake upgrade, when paired with the new Pirelli MT60RS tires, means that the bike’s stopping performance and therefore rider confidence should both be increased significantly. The 2020 Scout also gets a sport seat and passenger pegs, though we’re betting that the term “sport” is being used pretty liberally here.
Also different for 2020 is the selection of available performance exhausts from the factory that not only work to make the bike sound awesome but promise a 10% bump in power, and these new exhausts will also fit 2019 models. There’s a performance accessory intake on offer, too, and Indian claims that’s good for a 5% increase in power.
The new Scout line starts at around $8,999 for the Scout Sixty and ranges up to $15,999 for the 100th Anniversary model with its genuine leather seat and assorted chrome bits and limited, 750-unit production run.