The Indian Prince is a motorcycle manufactured by the Hendee Manufacturing Company from 1925 to 1928. An entry-level

single-cylinder A single-cylinder engine, sometimes called a thumper, is a piston engine with one cylinder. This engine is often used for motorcycles, motor scooters, go-karts, all-terrain vehicles, radio-controlled vehicles, portable tools and garden machinery ( ...

motorcycle, the Prince was restyled after its first year and discontinued after four years. The frame and forks of the Prince were revived in 1933 and used with

V-twin engine A V-twin engine, also called a V2 engine, is a two-cylinder piston engine where the cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. Although widely associated with motorcycles (installed either transversely or longi ...

s to form the Motoplane and the Pony Scout.

Design and production

The Prince was designed by Charles B. Franklin and began production in 1925. It was a single-cylinder motorcycle for beginners and for export. The 1925 Prince gear box was separate from the engine, the frame under the tank has a tube which the tank is bolted too, the gas tank is mounted from underside of tank, front and back it was a wedge-shaped fuel tank. The Prince was redesigned for 1926 with a separate gearbox and a fuel tank similar in shape to that of the contemporary Scout. Both versions used coil-sprung girder forks instead of the leaf-sprung trailing link forks used on the contemporary Chief and Scout. A front brake was added in 1928, the last year of production.

Legacy

Harley-Davidson Harley-Davidson, Inc. (H-D, or simply Harley) is an American motorcycle manufacturer headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1903, it is one of two major American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depressi ...

began production of their single-cylinder motorcycle for 1926 and continued them until 1934. In 1933, the Prince frame and forks were revived for use in the Motoplane and Pony Scout V-twin motorcycles. The Pony Scout was later renamed the Junior Scout and continued until the beginning of World War II. Girder forks were used on the 1934-1942 Sport Scout and on the 1945-1948 Chief.

Notes

References

* * * * Vehicles introduced in 1925

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. T ...

Motorcycles introduced in the 1920s {{Motorcycle-stub