Ducati Disasters – The Indiana
Ducati make some of the most evocative motorcycles in the world. With the introduction of the 1198 Superbike, Hypermotard, and Streetfighter, Ducati has perhaps its strongest product lineup in its entire history. As we wait for the new Multistrada 1200 to hit dealerships around the world I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the bikes that didn’t quite hit the mark. Sometimes the bike was ahead of its time, sometimes it was just plain bad. Whatever the reason, the Ducati Disasters series will tell the story. First up the Ducati Indiana Custom.
In 1985, Varese based Cagiva purchased Ducati. Ducati had been struggling and the Varese firm went on to revitalize the company, providing the vision and funding to create the Ducati 851, the bike that brought Ducati back fro the brink and put it into the league of performance that hitherto only the Japanese manufacturers inhabited. They also made some questionable choices during their reign.
Cagiva North America desperate for product (remember the company was trying to sell Ducati 750F1‘s against Yamaha FZ750′s, Honda Interceptors and Suzuki GSX-R750′s) decided to try their hand at a custom concept. In 1986 Joe Parkhurst who worked for a firm providing PR support to the company arranged for an unsold Cagiva Alazurra to be converted into a custom by bike builder Dallas Baker.
Supposedly this bike looked pretty good and was duly shipped off to Italy. What came back was the Indiana. There is some debate about the meaning of the name. On its face, it is the name of the American state but reputedly Cagiva wanted to call the bike Indian which wasn’t possible. The next choice was Indiana after the ‘Indiana Jones’ franchise (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released in 1984).
Whatever the origin of the name, the Indiana looked like an Italian Virago. It featured the 650, belt driven, desmodromic Pantah engine in a box section cradle with the requisite raked forks, low seat height and tear drop gas tank.
Cagiva paired a Pantah engine with a pressed-steel backbone frame with dual cradle loops made of square section tubing, the bottom right rail of which was removable for easier engine access. The engine was “re-tuned” for more mid-range torque — at the expense of all-out power — by fitting smaller valves and milder cams, and transmitted its power through a hydraulically-operated dry clutch and 5-speed wide-ratio gearbox. In the Indiana, the rear cylinder’s head was reversed so that the 36mm Bing CV carburetors were paired between the cylinders, and breathed through a paper filter fitted into the hollow frame backbone. In order to keep exhaust lengths reasonably similar, the rear cylinder’s header crossed over to the right, sweeping over the clutch cover.
The engine wasn’t ideally suited to the cruiser genre and the riding position was neither full on cruiser not roadster standard. Contemporary road test found it a frustrating machine even if there were some things to like. The punchy 53bhp Pantah powerplant combined with a reasonably light (for the class) weight of 397lb (180kg) meant the Indiana went alright in a straight line.
Cycle magazine: “The 650 is a surprising exercise, filled with newness and anachronism, irritation and delight bolted up side by side. Days aboard the Indiana are spent seesawing between exasperation with this motorcycle and real affection for it.”
link: Motorcycle Classics.com
The Indiana was in Twitter speak, an epic fail. It was something that appealed neither to Ducati faithful nor was it coveted by the Japanese cruiser camp. The $4,295 machine bombed. Regular production lasted just two years and only 2,318 were produced including 174 350′s for the Italian market and 251 larger engined 750′s.
PR man Joe Parkhurst again:
“It was just awful, quite different from the prototype we sent them….Boy did that bike fall flat on its face.”
Perhaps Ian Falloon summed it up best in his book ‘The Standard Catalogue of Ducati Motorcycles‘
“Cagiva was responsible for some of the greatest ever Ducati, but also some of the most horrendous. The Indiana fell firmly in the latter category.”
Sources:
The Standard Catalogue of Ducati Motorcycles by Ian Falloon
Ducati by Jon F. Thompson and Joe Bonnello
Want More?
Read the Review of ‘The Ducati Story‘ by Ian Falloon
Read More Posts on the Ducati Pantah
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