I’ve known Bob Clift for a decade and we recently hung out at his Las Vegas home. He was the friend of a friend who worked Las Vegas casinos in sales as a VP. He’s perfect for the sales world, good-looking, sharp-witted, and a fast talker. But there’s another grease-stained edge to Nevada Bob, and if you look close, it has Indian Motorcycle engraved into the polished blade.
Bob doesn’t sport a single tattoo. There’s no facial hair, but he does own a partially assembled 1915 Indian in his living room. He has two Bonneville World Land Speed Records under his belt, both on a 1953 Indian Chief, and he’s ridden cross-country a half dozen times, three instances on vintage Indians.
He’s perhaps the only man I ever met who was in the process of restoring five vintage Indians at the same time, and dissimilar models. His father hated motorcycles, although his two brothers rode. But he bent his desire to force Bob to be an athlete, and bought him a Rupp mini bike at 12, then a Honda Trail 70. His dad, an architect and school chum of the founder of Holiday Inns, designed hotels for Holiday Inns after he played AAA baseball in the Cardinals organization, and at 6’4” played basketball for the fledgling NBA, back in the day.
As a youngster, Bob worked in a Kawasaki shop, but during lunch he grabbed a sandwich next door and returned to dark recesses of the shop, where he could sit in peace on a ’41 Indian four-cylinder and eat. Down the street from his folks’ old middleclass house where he grew up and his grandfather was born, was a neighbor who owned a half-dozen classic Indians.
“I was intrigued with Indians at a young age,” Bob said, “and always broke, I was forced to learn how to fix everything I rode, but don’t talk to me about electrics.”
At 16, Bob convinced his folks to approve a cross-country ride on a 500 cc Honda four with clip-ons. “It had to be a road racer,” Bob said of the most uncomfortable riding position on the planet. Still broke, he spent only two nights in hotels, borrowed a pillow to assist his slim seat, and slept on the ground as he rode to Los Angeles to visit an uncle, then his sister in San Francisco, the hub of the hippie generation and the freedom movement in America. He rode across the country twice more in his younger years on a Z-1 900 Kawasaki, “a much more comfortable ride,” and then a ’75 BMW. “I turned into a pussy by then. It’s the best motorcycle I ever owned.”
It wasn’t until the ‘80s that Bob stepped into the Indian restoration world. He went nuts and bought everything Indian, from outboard motors to a ’69 Floyd Clymer Indian Mini bike, salesmen’s car- shock samples, auto window ventilators, promotional doodads such as Indian fishing reels, cigar cutters, knives, and oil cans. “I have Indian crap everywhere.”
Remember the 1915 in the living room? “It’s going back together,” Bob said. “I had the wrong tanks on it. Did you know 1953 Indians had the same transmission main gearset as the ‘15? You can interchange them.”
Bob hooked up with the masters of vintage Indians, Kiwi Mike and the late Max Bubeck. “Max still has a dry lakebed record on his Chief that he set in the 1940s,” said Bob. Max also won the Greenhorn Enduro back in the late ‘50s on a 1938 Indian four-cylinder. Max was a one of a kind racer.
While we roamed around his desert country home, Bob pointed out various Indian projects and historic elements.
“Here’s my Indian 3-wheeler, a Dispatch Tow. The Harley Servi-cars are a dime a dozen, but these things are rare as hen’s teeth,” Bob said. “They’re so different, the first time you go into a corner, you instinctively lean and they don’t lean. You have to actually steer it. And it has crap brakes. I mean all old Indians had crap brakes, even on a good day.”
This has reverse transmission and the tow bar on the front. “I started out riding a tricycle wearing a diaper, now I’ve got another tricycle and I’m getting close to the diaper again!”
We stumbled into one of his partially completed Chiefs, a 1934 model. “This is another one that’s an inch from the finish line. I just have to repair the magneto, and I finally found the correct antique crimper, so I can properly crimp the plug leads.”
Next to the ’34 is Bob’s ’53 Chief, one of the last ones produced before the Indian factory closed its doors for good. “This is the one I ran at Bonneville for the last two years,” Bob said. “The seat is wild. Isn’t that the ugliest damn thing in the world? That’s what I like about it. In ‘52 and ’53, Indian was so broke half their suppliers wouldn’t sell them stuff anymore. They were using any speedometers they could find. Linkert wouldn’t sell them carbs anymore. They started using Amal carburetors because the British didn’t have enough sense to know they shouldn’t extend them credit. That’s when they used these god-awful bench seats.”
In another corner sit two old outboard motors. “Indian in 1930 decided they were going to diversify and started making outboard motors,” said Bob, “so both of the versions are side-by-side over there – the mini outboard motors. They didn’t sell so they were discontinued after one year.”
“This is a bike that anyone with a lot of experience with Indians will tell you was the best bike they ever made,” said Bob of his 1930 Indian 101 Scout. “They made this model in ’29, ‘30 and ‘31. Then to save money after ’31, they started putting a Scout motor in the Chief chassis, which effectively ruined the best model they ever produced. This one is an amazing combination of handling and power and very easy to ride. I’ve never ridden another bike in my life where it’s just an extension of you. You sit on it and it’s like you’re wired into it. That’s why people still use Scouts for wall of death bikes today. They’re incredibly stable; it’s almost like they read your mind.”
He sold his ’27 Chief about a year ago to Jim Petty and Jim rode it on the Cannonball. “He took my old girl and flogged her in the Cannonball. Other guys rebuilt their bikes nightly. Jim just woke up every morning and went for a ride—until the throttle cable broke on the last day.”
The first Cannonball two years ago was going to be a Harley versus Indian extravaganza. So Excelsior finished first, second, and third. “This year who wins it? Excelsior! I love that,” said Bob. “I thought that was hysterical. Okay boys; put your egos on the shelf. You got beat by a 1913 Excelsior-
Henderson.”
Bob’s a rider to this day. He rode a 2002 Softail Springer across the country from Florida to Vegas, and two summers ago rode a dual sport from Vegas to the top of Alaska, then to Key West and back. “But I’ve ridden that ‘53 Chief and my ‘47 Chief both cross-country and they’re far more comfortable,” Bob said, “I rode my ’47 Chief on the Century Ride Home in 2001 from California to the old Indian factory in Springfield, Mass.”
In 2012, he drove from Vegas to BUB’s Bonneville Speed Trials, looking to set another record on his ’53 Chief. “I drove up on Friday after work, expecting to spend at least 5 days on the salt.” He then received an urgent casino meeting call. He was requested to attend a 9 a.m. meeting back in Vegas on Monday morning, about a 7-hour drive from the flats. He was standing on the salt after a downpour when he received the notorious call. Saturday was registration and tech inspection and Sunday was the first day of racing.
“I had to pass tech on Saturday and be in the pits ready to race Sunday morning at the crack of dawn, and get in line as fast as I could,” said Bob. “I had to make a run, set the record, and return to impound and wait for another back-up pass. They finally sent me back the other direction to back it up.”
His all black Chief wasn’t running right and he discovered a casting pinhole in the rear cylinder head. He made the final pass anyway. Although his rear cylinder ran lean and hot, the Chief survived the three-mile speed run return leg.
“I returned to scrutineering and had to tear the bike down quick, and then the tech guys said, ‘We’re gonna go to lunch!’ I thought they were just giving me a hard time, but they weren’t. I had the engine torn down, and sat there for an hour waiting for them to finish lunch.”
Fortunately, the bike passed everything. “I loaded up the truck and I was back home in Vegas about 8 the next morning. All the stars had to be aligned.”
Kiwi Mike stumbled into Bob’s garage as we gawked at one Indian artifact after another.
“This one’s a ’38, a rigid,” Mike said. “They started with the sprung version in 1940. It had one of the coolest motorcycle instrument dashes ever made, like an airplane panel. The numbers are really cool. It’s the Deluxe, the top of the line speedometer. You get a trip meter and a maximum speed hand to tell you how fast you’re going – like the police had. This might have been an old police bike.”
The 1940 models were built while DuPont owned Indian. “DuPont paint years were from ‘29 to ’45,” Mike said. “Indians got fancier. Still had that association into ‘46. If you didn’t like paint hues offered as standard, you could research the DuPont catalog and use any color they listed for a few dollars more.”
Mike pointed at Bob’s 1930 Indian Scout and the historic information began to flow. “The 101 Scout was the most common Indian,” Mike said. “Bob’s is a 1930, middle year (‘29, ‘30, and ‘31). The late teens were the Powerplus years. The 101 would have been superior to anything else back then technologically. It was the bike of the era, but they rested on their laurels, then Harley came along with the OHV Knucklehead.”
We could’ve spent several days roaming the sprawling rooms, closets, and sheds surrounding Bob’s home talking motorcycles, but he had projects to complete, cross-country rides to plan, and we faced a magazine deadline.
I’m sure we will feature more rare and rebuilt Indians after the skillful Nevada Bob has his way with them.
