Watch this 1947 Indian Chief get detailed. After eight decades, wouldn’t it be awesome if it managed to ride again while looking almost brand new? In WD Detailing’s video on YouTube, the iconic bike from the late forties gets a proper detailing job plus an oil change to see it roll off the lot under its own power.
The Chief nameplate has been around since 1922. Indian Motorcycles introduced the iconic model name to replace the Powerplus, and it has been the company’s big-bore twin-cylinder model, until 1953. It took several decades for Indian Motorcycles to relaunch the nameplate. It was before the turn of the millennium (1999) that Indian decided that it was time for its Chief to ride again. Fast forward more than two decades later, and the model name is still alive and kicking.
WD Detailing’s video covers a model from 1947 some of the last year's models before the Chief name went into hibernation, and two years before the production gap in 1949. Considering that this is a 76-year-old bike at the time that WD Detailing got his hands on it, it’s in pretty decent shape. The owner even stated that he had a sidecar for the bike, which was also given the same attention and care at the same time.
Gallery: 2023 Indian Sport Chief
After the bike and the sidecar were detailed, it headed off to assembly, and both the bike and the car were joined together. The other parts of this bike’s history may intrigue you as it did me. The front tire is from 1943 (older than the bike itself), and the paint is not original (the owner said that it was once blue and then repainted), the newer Pirelli tire fitted at the back was already cracking, and it was about 50 years later that the sidecar was purchased and painted with the same batch of paint that was used when the Chief was repainted.
The owner of this Chief wasn’t the first. Brett is the son of the owner, who managed to purchase the bike back in the 1970s for just $300 USD. Accounting for inflation that’s the equivalent of about $2,400 USD. According to some sources, these bikes can fetch over ten times the amount that Brett’s father paid for them back in the 1970s. Now that the bike is over 70 years old, however, it’s become exceedingly rare and harder to find and this one with all matching numbers is one collector’s item that might go for even more.
