1941 Indian Scout Restoration

Brian only recently got his beautiful old 1941 Indian Scout to the standard you see in the pics today. It has been a love affair of epic proportions that started more than 32 years ago when Brian first bought her in far from its current form.

“WHEN I actually bought the old girl, she had been seriously bastardised by one of her owners. She sported a very high sissy-bar, a ridiculously-looking king-queen seat, a VW generator, a set of angel bars, and had a stubby cooler bolted to the side of it.”

Like they say, “good things take time,” and it certainly took Brian long enough to actually get started on the resto. Over the next three decades the bike was stored in several different locations around South East Queensland until Brian finally decided to rip off the tarp, blow off the dust and concentrate on a full ground-up restoration.

Brian was inspired to have a talk with Rob Patrick, the local Indian restoration expert, about having some work done to his own old girl.

A rolling chassis was delivered to Rob for some work to begin, but when Brian saw some of Rob’s previous work, he downed tools and entrusted Rob to take over the project—lock, stock and barrels.

Between Rob’s expertise and Brian’s enthusiasm for gathering some hard-to-find parts the build went ahead in leaps and bounds. More than 12 months were spent on the Scout all up to get it to its current state.

Brian would frequent the local swap-meets for bits and pieces and had to order the gudgeon pins and a few other bits and pieces for the old flathead from a supplier in Germany. At the time of the shoot, the bike was still without an original speedo and the air cleaner was homemade using… well, you have to guess that one!

In its current state, this old Redskin gets her fair share of looks wherever she goes, but it was a match made in Heaven when we parked her next to the 1940 bi-plane for the shoot. Brian’s mate Warwick was kind enough to make his classic aircraft available for the shoot between joy flights which he does from the Antique Airways hangar at Redcliffe Airfield.

Brian would like to thank Rob Patrick for restoring his bike to its former glory; to Warwick for giving us the time, location and the bi-plane for the shoot; and to his old mates Steve and Nigel for coming along for the day to offer moral support and hang shit on him at every given opportunity as all fair dinkum Aussie mates should.

Ride safe Brian and good on you for bringing another old Indian back from the dead.

Indian Scout motorcycle

words & photos by Chuck U Farley

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