1948 Indian 45ci Big Base Factory Racing Motorcycle

Engine no. FDH 141

· Only one number away from Floyd Emde's '48 Daytona winning Indian
· One of between 25 and 100 Big Base racers made
· One of perhaps the most significant post war Indian models made

'The Big Base project paid off handsomely on March 14, 1948. Floyd Emde, heretofore a prominent Harley racer, won the 200 miles beach classic at the record pace of 84.01mph. For 1948, the Daytona course had been lengthened from its former 3.2 miles distance to 4.1 miles, resulting in the lengthening of each of the two straights to almost two miles. Consequently, a new race record was virtually assured.' (Jerry Hatfield, American Racing Motorcycles.) 'The starting line-up of the 1948 Daytona 200 was symbolic of the changing balance of power in American motorcycle racing... Harley-Davidson was holding its share of competition racers, but Indian was losing ground to Norton, BSA and Triumph.' But that's another story for another time.'

That glorious day on the beach, Emde was riding his Big Base Scout engine no. FDH 140. The bike for sale is FDH 141.

When Indian went to war after Pearl Harbor, three different models were conscripted, and the factory even developed a completely new machine to do battle with Field Marshall Rommel and his vaunted Afrika Korps. While rival Harley-Davidson got the bigger military contracts, Indian still contributed 40,000-plus machines to the war effort, supplying bikes to US armed services and those of our allies. By far the most prolific of war Indians was the 741B Scout, some 35,000 of which saw service. Power came from a 30.50ci (500cc) v-twin repurposed from the pre-war Junior Scout. To cope with the low-octane gasoline often found in war zones, compression ratio was lowered, which also aided reliability and made kickstarting easier – never a bad thing when someone is shooting at you. Clearly Indian could mass produce tough, easy to fix, ridable motorcycles. But could they go racing in a post-WW2 America?

While full-fendered Fours and Chiefs were the company's flagships, it was stripped-down 750cc Sport Scouts that had given Indian most of its racetrack glory throughout the 1930s right up until the attack on Pearl Harbor put most racing on hold. Performance was stressed from the model's first advertisement in 1934: 'Acceleration, speed, agility, the Sport Scout 45, streamlined from the ground up,' promised the copy. That boast was more than fulfilled in 1937 when Ed 'Iron Man' Kretz took a Sport Scout to victory in the inaugural AMA 200-miler on the sands of Daytona Beach. A reputation for outright top speed was taken care of later that year when former racer and Pasadena Police motor officer Fred Ludlow rode a tuned example to 128.57mph on California's Muroc Dry Lake. No new Sport Scout street bikes were produced after WW2 but the factory did conjure up a special batch of so-called 'Big Base' engines so Indian could continue doing battle with their great rival, Harley-Davidson. The hot-rodded Sport Scouts gave a good account of themselves, starting with another Daytona 200 win in 1947 with

smooth-riding Johnny Spiegelhoff at the controls. Next year it was Indian rider Floyd Emde's turn to take the Daytona 200 headlines on his Big Base Scout. Could Indian go racing!

More victories followed notched up by the famous 'Indian Wrecking Crew' consisting of Bobby Hill, Bill Tuman and Ernie Beckman – like Kretz, Ludlow, Spiegelhoff and Emde, all AMA Hall of Famers. Hill rode a Sport Scout to 11 AMA national wins and was Grand National Champion in 1951 and 1952. Tuman, with a total of five nationals, also had the distinction of being the last Sport Scout rider to wear the GNC crown when he took the title in 1953. Beckman won nationals three times in his career, and at the Williams Grove Half-Mile in 1953 was the last Indian rider to take the checkers at an AMA race – until 2017, that is, when a reconstituted Indian Motorcycle Company began racing once again.

In appearance, Big Base crankcases were similar to standard Sport Scout units, but they were specifically built for racing purposes. 'Despite having (supposedly) 98 percent commonality of parts with the defunct prewar Sports Scouts, the new "big base" Scouts had significant internal and external differences...an updated version of the several experimental prewar racers.' The flywheels were narrower, of cast steel and with an Army shaftdrive counterweight pattern. The crankshaft was well modified especially its lubrication. The pistons were now 'heavily-domed' which in turn required combustion chamber modification. There was a new aluminum oil pump connected to a new style oil tank. The new Edison-Splitdorf magneto required some cylinder fin cutting. These were just a few of the improvements. While there is much confusion about how many Big Base Scout motors were actually built by Indian, most agree it was no less than 25 and no more than 100.

FDH 141 has remained, miraculously, as a complete and original motorcycle in just wonderful condition and is thus a rare opportunity not to miss.