Rhon Racer

When it comes to customising one of the new Indians, there is little doubt that the powerful and lightweight Indian Scout is by far and away the most popular choice for builders, whether they be professional or amateur customisers or even official dealers. Rhönmotor is a motorcycle shop which has on its doorstep some of the best serpentine motorcycling roads in Germany, the perfect playground for a café racer-style Scout…

- Horst Rosler

However, the new Indians are not an easy choice for custom builders. Neither the 111 Big Twins nor the Scouts lend themselves to frame modifications, not to mention the fact that the watercooled Scout has the cooler as an integral part of the frame design. It’s ‘all or nothing’ if you want a radical Indian and throwing away almost all of a complete motorcycle is virtually inevitable. On the positive side, all Indian engines are so well developed that they hardly need any internal improvements in terms of tuning parts or upgrades.

But these difficulties don’t prevent the customising of the Scout—indeed, it can mean a much cheaper proposition for an owner and results can be as spectacular as on Rhönmotor’s café cruiser which was built for Custom Chrome Europe’s ever-popular Bolt On And Ride programme which, each year, produces a handful of impressive custom motorcycles as well as providing the CCE staff with something rather cool to ride during the summer. This isn’t the first Scout to appear in the BOAR stable, testament to the fact that CCE realised the customising potential of the model as soon as it was launched.