Firing a tommy from a moving motorcycle would be a waste of ammunition.
Now if they fitted a Lewis gun there would be a slight chance of hitting the broad side of a barn.
Also note in both instances the rider is using the throttle /brake hand to shoot with.
Not real smart if the enemy were withing firing range

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

Not quite Trevor, Indian's are renown for their left side throttle from the start. The "Myth" is that it was done so that a cop could use his firearm whilst in 'hot pursuit'. I've never believed that. I think it was just the way they designed it back in Edwardian days. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

Ron,

Yes, I agree. And one of the reasons Indian had the throttle on the left and the hand gear shift on the right might well have been because Harley at the time had a right hand throttle and a left hand gear change. Indian wanted to make it difficult for Harley riders (and presumably everyone else) to switch between marques. They hoped to stimulate brand loyalty that way - or so the saying goes. I wonder how true that is?

A third possibility might be that on the early Indians the hand pump for the oil was on the right, and so one could add a couple of extra squirts of oil without losing speed, which must have been useful for the early racers. The hand operated oiler remained in place into the 1930s (101 Scout etc).

My Indian required me to re-think how I operated the bike (the foot clutch added to the fun) - and this was rather interesting after having ridden an M20, for example. The automatic responses one needs when braking were slowed down considerably.....

Allan

email (option): allanmatchless@yahoo.com

For the sake of sanity, I swapped the throttle and advance/retard twist grips round on my 741. No real problem changing gear with the right side gearshift. After all, It's how most of the British hand change bikes were.

The foot clutch takes a bit of getting used to, and the slower gear changes are not helped by having only three gears which can lead to loss of momentum. Although it's quite simple to bring them from 500 to 600cc which does help. I haven't done it on this engine, it's still a standard 500cc. Ron


jale meaning in english

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

I'm currently renovating this CAV Chief for a friend. It's one of 325 CAV's that were reallocated to Great Britain after Paris fell, from the 5000 that were ordered by the French government in 1940. Those pesky Germans pinched lots of them. They were originally supplied in gloss green and black....But I've compromised with satin paint. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

There's also the story that Harley would fit left hand throttles on request for police forces in order to free up the right hand for gunplay.
But of course it may've just been an attempt to cash in on Indian's police market.

George Hendee started his Indian motorcycle building in 1901, 2 years before HD. Both firms early machines were sort of based on a bicycle with an engine and I doubt there was any rivalry in those days or attempt to influence the police force.

I stand by my theory that Indian's were built with left hand throttles since before the days of cables and were using rods and knuckle joints to achieve the easiest route to the carb. Leaving your right hand free for all the other controls

As Hendee (Indian) is considered the first US motorcycle company, you could argue the HD got it wrong by not following suit? :blush:

It was Indians large supply of WD motorcycles through both wars that ultimately led to their demise in the 50's (they shot themselves in the foot really) Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

OK Trevor. The Indian Motorcycle Co (spelt 'Motocycle' by them) concentrated such a major amount of their production to the war effort during WW1 that it denied lots of the U.S. dealers with machines to sell, so the dealers looked else where. Once civilian production at the factory got back under way, Indian found that a lot of their main dealer customers where now gone.....Happy with HD other makes

After WW2 there was such a glut of ex WD Indians around the World to be bought so cheaply that they just floundered on with poor sales until finally going bust in 1953. (Even now you see loads of civilianised and bobbered military 741's)

The name of course has been kept alive over the years by different firms, and now successfully it seems by Polaris. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

Fair enough.
I know little about any other company other than BSA and it subsiduries.
Down here we got flooded with ex military motorcycles.
I am fairly sure that the War office exported a lot of ex-service motorcycled down here.
There is a conversion to put teles on girder M20/21's that has the holes in the lower fork clamp off set slightly forward so the front wheel cleared the older long frame.
I have seen so many over the years to come to the conclusion it was either a factory modification or a distributor modification.
I was told but can not substantiate it was done to give the BSA dealers something to sell by refurbishing military bikes & fitting them with telescopic forks.
It would also have soaked up a lot of military surplus.

Interesting that Indian, which was a substantially better motorcycle than just about anything available post WWII could not sell but there we have it, history is a facinating subject.

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

Yep it was a common occurrence for a chap to revitalize his 1938/9/40 Tiger 90/100/ Speedtwin after the war with the new fangled 1945 tele's and throw those old girders away......Now worth up to 3 Grand if you can find any......Got that T shirt:flushed: Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

A friend has just bought a 1938 Matchless model X that has been in a barn since the early sixties...It's fitted with Vincent girdraulic front forks and a pre war AJS tank from an R7 racer!!!!....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Aloha,

About the Indian left hand throttle twist grip.
I was told by a very, very, very knowledgeable guy who restores vintage Harleys and others for a semi-living (and who did the cylinder work for my M21) that one of the very first Indians to have a motor on a cycle had the ignition timing on the right hand grip. The reason for this was that this was the only rev-adjustment that there was.

When Indian soon enough developed their constructions to have a throttle as well this ended up being on the left since they already had a working construction for the timing and saw no reason to alter it.

Sorry I have no source or reference for this, I know the guy to be someone who knows what he's talking about but realize that you all don't know him (or me). Some more research may need to go into this...

/simon