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West Coast, East Coast, and the Hart Luck man himself. Three custom builders, one Indian Sport Chief each.
That's the premise of a new video series Indian is producing. Hosted by Carey Hart, the former freestyle motocrosser and racer, who is also one of the three builders, the video series will follow the three as they turn an Indian Sport Chief into their own visions.
From the West Coast is Yaniv Evans of Powerplant Motorcycles based in Hollywood, California. As Hart describes it, Powerplant "is kind of the backbone of the FXR-Dyna trend that started a couple of decades ago." Now, after churning out custom FXRs and Dynas in black, he's ready to put a little chrome on his Indian Sport Chief. He's also drawing on styling cues from the original Indians, such as the valanced fenders the bikes were known for in the first half of the 20th century.
From the East Coast is Jake Cutler of Barnstorm Cycles in Spencer, Massachusetts. Cutler plans to make a few changes to improve performance, such as increasing lean angle, along with some cosmetic modifications to give his Sport Chief a more aggressive look to match. "You think about how many different versions of a motorcycle have been created and there's still new things to come up with," Cutler says. "It's inspiring and it's exciting."
The third builder is Hart himself, who's building a bike for old friend and fellow freestyle motocrosser Jeremy "Twitch" Stenberg. Hart is focusing first on handling and braking performance, as well as aesthetic changes. "He's going to put this thing through the wringer. He's going to be riding it, he's going to be on the rev limiter on the thing," says Hart. "So it has to perform. It's not just a trophy bike."
Personally, I'm happy to see top customizers like these guys factoring performance into their builds, and not just trying to outdo each other in extremes of appearance, as we saw more than a decade ago when customizers were building ever longer front ends and ever lower slammed rear ends, to the point where the motorcycles were barely rideable. Let's see what they come up with.
