On August 13-15, Mecum will be auctioning off over 300 cars and sadly, just 5 bikes. Let’s take a look at the latter.
1912 Indian Board Track Racer. This bike has been mechanically overhauled ‘without disturbing its originality – it reminds me of the other 1912 vintage Indian Twin I recently featured. Note that the gas tank decal is larger than what you’d see on stock models, and the carb has been ‘modified for board track racing’.
1914 Indian Hendee Special. The Hendee special was built for less than one year and it’s a rare fidn nowadays. It was the first motorcycle to have an electric start, plus it featured the 7 hp 61 ci twin. All this could be yours for $325. As a sign of the times, the electric start was not a feature, it was a liability – battery tech was quite poor at the time so a brand new battery would yield all of a few dozen starts before it became flat. The public hated it and Indian killed the model very quickly. Electric starters didn’t come back to motorcycles for another 40-ish years! Many owners removed the electric starters from their Hendee Specials, but I can’t tell if this bike still has it or not from the minimal information given and the photos. Let’s hope it does.
1914 Flying Merkel V-Twin. Built just between 1911 and 1915, the Flying Merkel was a leading racer of the time thanks to innovative suspensions and an engine that enabled slogans like “If it passes you, it’s a Flying Merkel” and “The Most Powerful Motorcycle in the World”. For more information, check out this excellent site dedicated to the Flying Merkel.
1928 Indian Hillclimber. Powered by a hefty 80 cubic inch side-valve engine but it wasn’t enough to best Harley. Skip this one and move on to the next hillclimber…
1930 Indian Hillclimber. Now we’re talking. Indian’s legendary hillclimber was the A45, a limited run of 26 bikes powered by a 45 ci OHV engine. It’s weird that this is called a 1930 since Mecum themselves (in another auction) say this bike was only built in 1926 and 1927, but the important thing is that this is one of the most exciting motorcycles Indian ever built. The engine yielded 60 horsepower on alcohol fuel with 15:1 compression! This example is #12 of 26, and it apparently was given an incorrect 61 ci engine at some point in life. The owner decided to get a correct 45 ci engine, only to later discover it was the numbers matching motor.
One of the six stunt bikes built for the Nicholas Cage movie “Ghost Rider”. I’ve featured one of these before (probably the same one, for all I can tell), and the asking price was $10,000. These were released to the public as part of a giveaway done by Sony and Sobe. Modifications are numerous, as is evident from the photo. They include a chromed frame, one-off underseat exhaust, Pesnke shock, and NOS cans on each side of the bike.
As mentioned before, this auction is primarily cars. Allow me to go on an automobile tangent to share my favorite car that’s going on the block – a 1967 Toyota 2000GT, just one of the 62 that were built for the US market. I think it’s the greatest Japanese car ever, and I’m already jealous of whoever’s going to be picking this one up.
Well, that’s all of the bikes. Want to see the entire list of vehicles that are available? Click here!