Polaris Tries to Rev Up Indian Motorcycle's Run at Harley

Despite paltry annual sales and a customer base that couldn’t fill a high school gym, Indian Motorcycle—America’s oldest bike brand—gets a lot of love from its $3.2 billion-a-year parent. Since buying Indian two years ago, Polaris Industries Chief Executive Officer Scott Wine has posed on classic bikes, promoted Indian’s mobile app, and even donned one of its jackets in the 2012 annual report. “The heritage of this brand is phenomenal,” Wine says.

The question is whether he can leverage that heritage to create a viable competitor for Harley-Davidson. Others have tried, including Polaris. The company, a big maker of snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles, launched its Victory bike line 15 years ago. While Victory makes up most of Polaris’s on-road vehicles unit, which grew 64 percent to $240 million in sales last year, that’s a fraction of Harley’s $5.6 billion. Now Polaris hopes to win over Harley fans with a 112-year-old motorcycle brand that’s faded under multiple owners since the 1950s.