This bike was built for the Daytona race in 1948 and raced continually up through the early sixties by various riders and owners! There are only seven known of these Big Base Racing Scouts left, some historical info states that these bikes were shipped out as parts and put together by the team riders and mechanics a practice which began in the 1940-1941 season, supposedly a covert operation supplied racers with parts and prototype  machines !   This bike was part of a collection of bikes bought out of an estate in Detroit this owner/collector did race the bike at several small tracks before retiring it in the mid-sixties! Our consignor again restored this bike entirely by himself to perfection and has been in his collection for the past 30 plus years! !

This bike has also been featured in books and been on display at several museums!

Latest Book:  The Indian/(The History of a Classic American Motorcycle)  written by Tod Rafferty   (page 98)

1911 Indian won the top three spots in the grueling 189 mile Isle of Man TT race  making an international name for itself !  15 years they came up with a plan to again accomplish this feat,a 45-cubic-inch (about 750cc) twin factory racer with aluminum alloy heads and overhead valve design! This engine was designed to run on alcohol fuel which shows how technology had grown!

26 Bikes were built 22 for hill climbing and 4 for road racing!  History says two were shipped overseas including this one for the intent to win the Isle of  Man race!  Once over there it was announced that alcohol racers were banned which would mean a rebuild, unfortunately after an inspection by race officials the bikes were deemed them unfit for competition!

As a result of all this bikes built specifically for competition probably never turned a single race lap!

This bike was found in Philadelphia PA actually by accident our consignor bought what he thought was a cache of old NOS Indian parts and this bike was found in 3 different crates along with spare parts for it! At first thinking it was just a 1926 Twin he soon discovered the treasure he had and restoration began!

1937 INDIAN INLINE 4CYL W/SIDECAR

This is a very rare beautiful motorcycle as very few were built and very few survived and this particular bike is even rarer as it has its original side-car!

Indian had bought the the Ace Motorcycle company in 1927 after the owner Mr.Henderson died in a testing accident,this move was to compete with Harley Davidson and the of course the Great Depression hit and sophisticated Four Cylinder engines became too pricey for the market the easy solution would have been to drop the fours and concentrate on other machines but the engineers at Indian came up a an Idea to make it better and less expensive so the new Four was born! The result was what became known as the because of its unique engine configuration! Previous models had  the inlet valves over the exhaust valves a design typical of early engines,in 1936 the Indian four had its exhaust valves over the intakes,resulting in an engine with the carburetors down low and the exhaust pipes up high!

Latest Book Featured: Tod Rafferty    (The history of a Classic American Motorcycle)  page 77!

1948 BIG BASE SCOUT RIDDEN BY ERNIE BECKMAN

Ernie  Beckman is last rider to win an AMA Grand National race on an Indian—his August 2, 1953, victory was at Williams Grove, Pa on this bike!!
Before retiring from the sport 11 years, Beckman went on to win three AMA Nationals and was part of the famous Indian Motorcycle’s “Wrecking Crew,” a group of racers that included champions Bobby Hill and Bill Tuman.

The bike was found in Detroit Mich.  about thirty years ago from a man who we believe bought it directly from Beckman and had raced it himself a bit  on and off  through the early sixties,during this time it was kept pretty much as originally built by Beckman,the original blue paint was  painted the color it is now sometime in the late fifties ! Our consignor restored the bike keeping it as original as possible using the last color of the bike matching the other Beckman bike he bought from this same owner!

This bike has been in several books and museums and is the actual  bike ridden by Ernie Beckman for Indian  at Williams Grove Speedway which the last National Title for Indian!

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