Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/139559
INTERVIEW P84 INDIAN MOTORCYCLE'S STEVE MENNETO folks who are into performance, into better lean angles and such. Indian will still have a great performance and innovation as part of what it brings to market, but with traditional overtones. Victory is going to focus on performance and innovation as its core brand values. So do you have a message for those people who predict that Polaris will end up killing off Victory, and will eventually focus 100 percent on Indian? I have been asked that quite a bit, and the answer is - no, we don't have any intention of killing off one brand or the other, and in fact we're looking at charging pretty hard into funding both. We have already invested in two separate teams where it makes sense for us to do so, so we have two separate marketing teams, two separate engineering teams, and so on. Victory and Indian do share the same facilities in Wisconsin for manufacturing the engines, and in Iowa for assembling the motorcycles, but they are on separate lines. We've done everything to make sure that these two brands operate separately, and will continue to do so. How much has the Polaris motorcycle division's workforce increased to accommodate Indian? We've added 30 heads inside the marketing and sales division, and then over 250 more in the manufacturing and engineering division. We'll continue to grow numbers as we increase production volume. Once Indian production has commenced, will you run two shifts daily at your Spirit Lake, Iowa assembly plant, or just a single one - and if so, how many bikes per year can you manufacture on that basis? We have one manufacturing shift at Spirit Lake at the moment, but if we do our job well in marketing Indian, we have the ability to run a couple of shifts, even three shifts daily. We can build over 100 Indian motorcycles in a day, maybe even more, on a single line, and we can run extra shifts to build up volume. Our upside production capability is unlimited, essentially. If we're doing that well with the Indian brand – or with Victory we'll invest in other plants just as you've seen us do with our other businesses, such as our recently opened new factory in Mexico, or the new plant we've just announced for Poland. Okay, but let's ask the inevitable question that people will have, based on that response. Will Indian motorcycles always be made in America? Yes, they will be. It's key to the brand that they will be. Let's look at your time frame for re-launching the Indian brand. You're presenting the fruits of your past two years of development at Sturgis in August - but when will you begin manufacturing the new Indians, when will there be bikes in the dealerships, and how many dealerships indeed are there already? We will begin manufacturing