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This Is the Indian FTR 750 Racing Engine

Even though racing divisions often have a life of their own when compared to the road-going motorcycles, in the case of Indian and their new project, things may be a bit different. Of course, we are referring to the recent announcement House Springfield made, letting the world know they're back in flat-track racing, and with an all-new machine.
Indian FTR 750 engine 3 photos
Photo: Indian Motorcycle
Indian FTR 750 engineIndian FTR 750 engine
Under guidance from Polaris, who owns the brand and wants to see it grow, and Victory, under the same umbrella, and sporting more technological prowess, Indian is taking bold steps towards yet another battlefield where Harley-Davidson is waiting.

As a base for th new FTR 750 mill, Indian will use a tweaked version of the Scout engine, the very one Victory put in their most recent Octane muscle bike.

Surely, that engine is a 999cc v-twin but shortening the stoke to reduce the displacement seems like a sound option. This move would allow the new engine to rev higher, and since racing mills are also about red line power and flat-track doesn't use too many gear shifts that require low-end grunt... the picture becomes clearer.

An American motorsport that hasn't made it big outside the continent, flat-track racing is drawing an increasing number of fans, and the bar and Shield understood they can capitalize on this. Since a Road Glide would not be an adequate machine for flat-track races, Milwaukee envisioned transforming their fairly new Street 750 into a bike that could dominate the series.

H-D recently unveiled their newest Street 750 incarnation in the shape of a model specifically engineered for flat-track, but we strongly believe that Indian knew about their plans for quite a long time because motorcycles are not made overnight. Weeks after Harley's move, Springfield also announced they were already working on a similar machine.

Now, the fun thing is that Indian appears to backtrack from racing to the street-level, exactly the opposite of what Harley did. That is, first delivering a middleweight race machine and then developing a road-going model based on it.

Despite the fact that Indian never mentioned (so far) any intentions to add a new model to their line-up, it's hard to believe that thei won't. The war with Harley-Davidson has been a long one and it is far from over; in fact, with Polaris' financial backing and tech expertise from both the mother-company and Victory, Indian only looks to be preparing an even more powerful assault on H-D's ultra-dominant position.

It will not make the Milwaukee giant shake, at least not now of in the few coming years, but things are on the move. We're hunting for the specs of the new mill because the photos we have are not too communicative.
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