During World War II, the US Army requested experimental motorcycle designs suitable for desert fighting. In response to this request, Indian designed and built the Indian 841.

The Indian 841 was heavily inspired by the BMW R71 motorcycle used by the German Army at the time, as was its competitor, the Harley-Davidson XA. However, unlike the XA, the 841 was not a copy of the R71. Although its tubular frame, plunger rear suspension, and shaft drive were similar to the BMW's, the 841 was different from the BMW in several aspects, most noticeably so with its 90-degree longitudinal-crankshaft V-twin engine and girder fork.

The Indian 841 and the Harley-Davidson XA were both tested by the Army, but neither motorcycle was adopted for wider military use. It was determined that the Jeep was more suitable for the roles and missions for which these motorcycles had been intended.

The military Indian 841 model. Sadly only 1000 were made before the US Army decided to order huge numbers of Jeeps instead. The 841 (and similar Harley XLA which suffered the same fate) copied the successful German BMW army motorcycles including shaft drive and 4 speed hand clutch/foot shift. (Actually the 841 looks more like a Moto-Guzzi because it was a 90 degree V instead of a 180 degree flat or "boxer" engine layout.

The Guzzi actually copied the Indian because the Guzzi V twin did not come about until the late 1960's.) Why Indian and Harley did not use these adanced (for 1941) bikes as postwar civilian models is a big mystery.

 Harley still does not have shaft drive and only offered foot shift as an option in the early 1950's, about 11 years after its XLA model. One answer is they were expensive to produce and Indian lacked money, but in the postwar era people, including returning soldiers, had cash to burn.

Also the difficult and expensive development work (designing the tranny and drive shaft and rear hub) had already been done and the tooling and jigs set up.

The Indian 841' s weigh almost as much as a Chief and are the same length, but with all that weight (about 550 pounds) and only a 750 c.c. flathead engine, power must be sluggish. (Design is ideal to convert to twin carbs for a little extra power though, and could not Chief top ends and a longer stroke been added?)

 Then again 1950's BMW's were slow too. (Imagine if Indian had competed with BMW R50 series and taken a share of the 1950's BMW market. It might have sold enough to survive.)

Article Source Indian Chief And Wikipedia