My dream for quite some time has been to build modern Retro styled classic American motorcycles to complement our other Kiwi motorcycles. After making it known to S&S of my dream bike at Sturgis (early Aug 07), I got a surprise call Thurs Aug 16 from Brett Smith, President of S&S and Michael Scalleta saying I had been selected to be 1 of the 10. A short while later I received a follow up official letter written by Brett which stated, "Mike you wanted it, you got it." Little does he know but that note meant a lot to me. My reply was thank you and I will not let you down.

S&S also announced they had five engine classes which would encompass a total of 50 builders with a grand prize of $50,000.00, however in my mind we were already a winner just to have selected to be one of the builders and the $50,000.00 did not mean a thing.

No words could explain how I felt at the time to have been recognized by such and Icon Company as it felt as though it was a whole new beginning for Kiwi Indian Motorcycle Co, and I appreciated being given the chance to participate. All too often I find this Harley aftermarket business very narrow minded and most in it cannot deviate from the usual style builds and builders, so being given an opportunity to inject something new, different and of past historical significance always excites me.

Needless to say the next day I already had a plan put together of the general layout and design of our motorcycle. S&S X-Wedge engine is a totally new platform engine and not related to anything existing on the market. I got word of the X- Wedge just before the Cincinnati V-Twin Expo (dealer trade show) in Feb '07 and my first thoughts were that it was just another ho hum (unexciting) Harley derivative engine. However upon following it up, I found out that it was far from that, a whole new fresh design, which I feel is what our industry so badly needs. I made it THE point to have at the top of my list of to do’s at Cincinnati and I attended every seminar put on about the X-Wedge, so I could fully understand the engine. In a nut shell it is a 56-1/4 degree air cooled V-Twin engine with an automotive style crank and rods utilizing plain bearings with a high performance Chevy 454 top end designed to meet future EPA emissions standards, absolutely marvelous. In all honesty S&S has taken the lead in the V-Twin engine design which in my mind now dates most of the Harley based V-Twin designs. When we look back in time some years down the road, this engine will be a defining engine in the world of American made V-Twins.

I also noticed an interesting phenomena taking place in the V-Twin market over many years which is Harley’s need quite a bit of money spent on them after they are bought from the dealer in order to get them to run half ways decent. We’re all told it's due to the new emissions standards, however I see it more as a cheap cop-out by the Motor Co. to avoid re- engineering their product better to make it better.

I understand tradition as that’s also where I come from, specializing in Indians most of my working life (30 years to this point) but one has to have an open mind to all motorcycles and ask why is it that you can buy a foreign made motorcycle, for example a “Star” (Yamaha Harley knock off) motorcycle and ride it without spending any extra dollars in performance up grades.

I believe many people will be asking the same questions as time goes on and Harley will see the results. On the other hand one would hope not too many look at other brands as Harley's antiquatedness fuels a big aftermarket industry which Harley despises. I feel a famous brand name, pushing American made and a trendy life style product can only work for so long and eventually the consumer gets to the point of being overdosed and checks out other manufactures and models of motorcycles which Harley needs to seriously keep in mind.

Kiwi Indian Motorcycle Company's mission is to make an American made, well engineered, reliable, easily serviceable, durable and classic retro styled motorcycles with true American tradition. This is now totally do-able with the S&S X-Wedge engine/Kiwi Indian m/c Co with S&S backing it, as this bike requires no aftermarket performance upgrades (and additional money). Kiwi is all about quality and durability while providing a uniquely different product. We aim to please and we don't come up short.

It was just a few years ago I was told that my motorcycles and products were not main stream by one of the top magazine editors in the US and that I would never be eligible for any industry recognition. That statement irked me so much, and even to this day I believe the reason many of us ride motorcycles (for me going back to my 1970s riding years) included not wanting to be mainstream. Now let's just take a short moment to look where all the mainstream chopper builders are, hmm, they're now chasing the trendy bagger market. Wow, original thinkers aren't they, building the SOS again. While there are some original thinkers in that market, most can't. Who gives a hoot about being mainstream. Someone in America must buck the bloody main stream trend. Main stream, FTH.

We received our mock up X-Wedge engine and one of the Kiwi Indian traits of our style is to have a compact power plant unit (engine, transmission, primary assembly). I have never cared for the Harley design with the transmission a ½ a mile behind the engine as my style is to keep the powerplant unit nice 'n' tight and compact in design. In one of the S&S sessions at Cincinnati I asked why they had not considered a combined unit (engine/tranny/primary in one case) like the Sportster, but the answer was that all the bike builders balked at it. To me most of the thinking here in America is keeping in the past and not pressing forwards and trying new things. I foresee great new designs if S&S would produce a unitized powerplant as it would allow a greater freedom for us designers.

One of the smartest engineers around is Alan Sputhe (Sputhe Engineering) and it didn’t take long for me to figure out that he was the man to have involved in our project. I visited Alan and we got along straight off the bat, and he took the time to show me some of his past designs and creations which assured me even further that he was a genius and a great guy to have involved. In my mind he's a man ahead of his time in many cases as some of the things that we see today in our market he did some 20 years ago. He's a man of not so many words but what he has designed and built within the V-Twin industry was truly amazing. He is one of the most overall smartest people within our industry that I have ever met.

Aug 22 the mail arrived and S&S formal confirmation, and I could not sign on the dotted line fast enough, even before reading all of the paperwork it got signed and faxed back. We’re gonna do it come hell or high water so why sweet the details.

The builder list showed 50 builders building bikes from across all of S&S engine platforms (Panhead, Shovelhead, Evo, etc) and only 10 selected to build a bike using their new X- wedge engine. Wow, I thought, this makes it even more coveted. This is an opportunity of a lifetime to create a masterpiece and I had my list of design requirements ready which was as follows:

Plunger rear suspension (classic style), seat post (comfort), traditional solo seat (comfort),18" wheels (handling), PM Marquee wheels (style), Avon tires (the best), dual 10" discs up front with dual 4 piston calipers (stopping power), compact powerplant (freedom of design), belt rear drive (smoothness and low maintenance), classic fenders and tanks (tradition), oil tank in front right gas tank (clean design), retro instrumentation (style), Kiwi frame and Kiwi Girder forks made in house (quality control).

Sept 07. James Clark of James Gaskets passed away suddenly of a heart attack. James was one of my closest personal friends and was the nicest guy in the American motorcycle industry. He owned a very successful manufacturing business manufacturing the highest quality gaskets for American motorcycles namely Harleys. His gaskets carried several patents and are the best gaskets money can buy, period.

Over the years of working with James we have been able to develop advanced sealing solutions for vintage Indian Motorcycles and both he and I grew to be close personal friends. He encouraged me to excel and think outside the box and when I told him of my new bike design utilizing S&S new X-wedge he got extremely excited and encouraged me to move forward with my dream. I discussed my design with him however my dream of him seeing it was cut short when he suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack. This was quite an emotional set back for me as in my heart this bike had a lot of James in it. James was a class act, never took any lime light and was a visionary guy whom I could talk to about the industry and its inner workings. My back ground is vintage Indians and over the past 20 years I have designed and created around 2500 different part numbers for classic Indians so entering the modern American m/c industry posed some challenges; however most of the industry veterans already knew and respected me for what we did for Indian motorcycles. Our leaf spring forks were a major step for us in this market as they were instantly featured on all of the top builder’s bikes and new relationships were formed.

I believe in growing a company organically and for us that has been manufacturing all the individual parts to a motorcycle whether it be a brackets, speedometers, ignition switches, gauges, wheels, brakes, handlebar controls, tanks, fenders, engines, transmissions, forks, frames, etc, we’ve done it all organically one part at a time. I love the modern industry for its excitement and opportunities. RIP my good friend James Clark.

Nov 07. We finally got our mock up engine back from Alan Sputhe as he was grafting up his mock up compact tranny to it. This was step one which would now allow us to set it in our frame jig so we could start bending our straight tubing that has been hanging around for a while. We generally do everything ourselves, our own way and we don't mislead people in believing that we actually make stuff and actually build bikes from scratch. The thing that irks me the most in this industry is how people can lie about what they actually make.

Once the engine was set upon our frame table we noticed the X-Wedge front and rear engine mounts were at different heights and upon questioning the S&S folks we were unable to get the information that we needed. For some odd reason the difference was not a standard fractional size which concerned me more than anything; however we sat the engine mounts on machinist blocks and figured it out the old fashioned way. At least we knew we were right on and it was a starting point.

Dec 3, 2007 we shaped the front frame down tubes which were tack welded into place.

Dec 5, I had a change of gears as to the front end. Kiwi is known to be different and rather than build the usual front end (hydraulic or leaf spring), we wanted to go with something different and something with style that we could add to our product line of offerings. Mind you my good friend Brian Klock did have something to do with convincing me, so I had Christian Dotson draw up a quickie sketch of what our bike would look like with a Kiwi Girder on it.

Christian is an awesome designer and he whipped out a few drawings, one of which also had our Leaf Spring forks. It was so cool, too. There's a couple of cool dudes right there.

Early Dec I ran into a guy at the Long Beach Cycle show whom I have known of for years who is a master shock expert, Gil from Works Performance Shocks. I explained to him that I wanted to have a hydraulically dampened conventional plunger rear end, and he immediately got all pumped up and started drawing things out on a piece of scrap paper. Up to this point the frame was sort of bent up on our frame table but the tube ends at the rear plungers were open. Meeting up with Gil made me feel confident in that aspect of the project.

James Simonelli from S&S has always been a huge help with our projects, no matter what question I had. He either had the answer on hand or researched it for us in a very timely fashion even calling me back at 11pm his time with an answer. I can't speak highly enough about James as he is an awesome individual and a huge asset to S&S.

A while ago Chopper Dave built a bobber with an X-Wedge for S&S to introduce it to the Japanese market at the Mooneyes show in late Nov. I had a few questions and Dave went out of his way to assist going so far as saying that his bike will be back next week so come on down and do anything you want with it and take it for a ride. It was a very generous offer indeed and it's great to have great mates in low places.

To date (Dec 13) our finished motor had still not arrived. We found out that our special request of powder-coating the cylinders and parts of the heads black threw a spanner in the works at S&S, so James Simonelli took it upon himself to handle our special request. One of our aims with this engine was to simulate the vintage era like on our Kiwi flathead engines. From what I heard most of the other builders had their engine but we didn’t, which in all honesty was no big deal since we had a mock up to work with.

We drew sketches of how we wanted the cylinders and fins to look, and James carried out our wish. I can’t speak favorably enough about James.

Dec 18: The frame backbone was now fabricated and a 180 rear tire was our choice, up from a 150. Our rear fender had to be widened to accommodate our new tire. To me a 180 tire makes a bike have a little attitude but without sacrificing handling, since my aim was to balance looks and handling. I find so many bikes don't handle because builders and buyers just don’t know what a motorcycle or motorcycling is all about. I might be raving on, but the motorcycle industry is in a market correction and getting rid of the crap that has been built over the last few years which is a good thing and the cream is rising to the top.

Rule #1 for a motorcycle is it has to go around corners, so handling is important and I'd venture to say that was last on many of the custom bike builders lists. Never stray away from rule #1.

Mid Jan and our finished X-Wedge engine finally arrives. Fedex ground delivered it to our old shop address (12 miles away) which we had moved from five years ago and it took them five more working days to have it redirected just 12 miles away to our current address. It became a joke talking with Fedex each day so much so, that I jokingly asked how long does it take for a 215 lb package to get delivered 12 miles?

When the engine finally arrived it was outstanding to say the least. Our custom powder coated mat black cylinders/heads and polished combo made the engine classically outstanding. While it did take S&S/James quite a bit to get it the way we wanted it, it sure as hell was well worth the effort and wait.

I ordered up the blank rear fender pieces from a friend in the business that makes the fenders for the vintage bikes. The fender I ordered was much a blank stamping meaning the crown and skirts were straight out of the stamping dies with little trimming and the skirts were not welded to the crown nor was the chain guard cut out fabricated.

When the fender parts arrived we got the bill which was expected as we did not ask for anything free, however we were all stunned at the cost, 50 bucks less than a completely finished off one, that's a 15% discount, whippy bloody do, you just got to be kidding for just fender stampings!!!

He sells a completed rear fender meaning, stamped, trimmed, welded, drilled, chain guard cut out and mounting tabs fitted all finished and ready for final paint for $50.00 more. Upon discussing this on several occasions to give him every chance to rectify it, all I got was, "Well if I sell you an unfinished fender then I loose a sale on a completed one." Give me a break and get real!!! I've helped this friend out many times over the years especially when he couldn’t find parts for his own personal bikes, so I’d loan him the parts out of my personal collection so he could keep on rolling with his projects. I also started his tank program using one of my venders, sacrificing my own tanks as guinea pigs and organizing the tooling to make it all happen along with countless hours on my part all to help a friend out. Since this is a pretty high profile and unique build, one would think it would be a perfect opportunity to have ones product featured on it but some people just can't see the forest because of the bushes, ah well, his loss.

I'm happy to have some other very cool companies involved in this project. I just like companies to work with us in a favorable way so that we can still remain friends and neither one gets hurt, it's that plain and simple. It needs to be Win-Win. Since this has been published the guy has taken offence to this however this is not intended to embarrass anyone, but is a chronicle of the build, its trials, tribulations and honest goings on.

It's no wonder I build more and more stuff myself, as I can do without the drama. I find life is all about relationships but some just don't get it. It's fun building them and if it had not been for building relationships over the years, our business or products would not have been as successful.

March 18, and we’re finished with a bike we built for David Letterman. The bike build was a major transformation of turning a 2002-2003 Gilroy era Indian Chief into looking like Steve McQueen's replica 1940 Indian Chief. It was a major undertaking as nobody had ever done it before, but it gave us a chance to transform a so-so Indian into something stunning.

To me the Gilroy era Indians had quite a few issues in design which gave me a good inside view of what not to build into our bike.

Late March we had hammered out the final design and dimensions for the Kiwi Girder front end. Tiny our master machinist must have been dreaming every night about how to machine up all the little bits and pieces that go into our front end, since once he got on the lathe and mill, he got cranking and out popped some beautiful pieces of art.