Words: Matthew Shields

Nostalgia goes a long way these days, but it doesn’t speak without performance. Take a look at Ducati’s Scrambler and Triumph’s Bonnevilles – both superb performing modern motorcycles that look like great bikes from the past. The Springfield is in the same boat. Named after the birthplace of the Indian Motorcycle company, a lot of the stylings of the new machine mimic those of the Indians from the 1940s.

Today’s Springfield is competition for Harley-Davidson’s Road King. Built on a touring-focused package, the Springfield is as comfortable as it looks and rides the worst of roads effortlessly. High-speed stability is excellent, as you’d expect, but at slow speeds it turns faster than a bike of its style deserves to. There is plenty of ground clearance when you want to start riding hard and the brakes are ridiculously powerful with the rear brake delivering a good share of the overall stopping power.

With a removable windshield and hard, all-weather, remote-locking saddlebags the Springfield can be ridden a bit on the sporty side or as a fully-loaded touring model. The choice is yours and done simply by removing the touring kit. The windshield comes off quickly, as do the bags, and the only time I wanted rid them was lane-splitting in peak hour Sydney traffic. It’s not the kind of place any Springfield owner would plan on riding, but the low-speed engine performance and light handling make it easy when it just has to be done.

The Springfield is powered by the 1811cc Thunder Stroke 111 engine – a pushrod V-twin with a semi-dry sump engine that gets 8000km between services. You can get bikes with bigger intervals than that, but I suspect the performance the engine delivers has something to do with intervals on the shorter side for a tourer. Power isn’t mentioned in the spec sheet because this engine is all about torque with a huge 139Nm of it on tap.

Power comes on strong, and is ultra smooth. There is plenty of rubber mounting everywhere to ensure you don’t feel many vibes in the rider’s seat but good vibrations still come through when the revs get up. The Springfield is conservative on petrol when riding the open road, but if you use the performance of the engine to propel this bike that always weighs more than 350kg, then 300km out of a tank is what you will get. That massive amount of torque is mostly dealt out by 2000rpm and the bike will easily pull you out a gear too high from very low rpm.

Sixth gear is great on the open road and even fully laden with gear and passenger it’ll give you strong and purposeful acceleration. Drop it down one or two gears and you’ll make much quicker progress though. The handling does err on the side of comfort and is not harsh but still resists hard bumps well. The air-adjustable rear end makes dialing things in for extra loads easy, but the best part of the chassis is the steering. With a 25-degree rake and 133mm of trail, it is responsive and agile.

The crash bars give a feeling of security – they are extensive. I caught my sizes 12s on the rear crash bars on take-of from a set of lights once and didn’t do it again. The front ones aren’t too wide and make for a nice highway footpeg when you need variation in the riding position but best of all they’ll save big money in a crash. In addition, the base-level specification includes a tyre pressure monitoring system, cruise control, and dual riding lights. There’s also ABS on what is a superb braking package.

The quality of finish is flawless down to every last nut and bolt on the Springfield, and you would expect that of a motorcycle that will cost you $34k on the road. But this machine goes further with the iconic logo on everything from the headstock to the footage rubbers. Most new owners will add accessories and the addition of pipes will add some real character and extract even more of the big twin’s performance.

There’s a high level of standard features, great load capacity, and some of the best styling you’ll ever see on a production motorcycle. There is a lot of value in the Springfield be it for the superbly crafted piece of rolling nostalgia or for the great performing bagger it is. Priced at $33,995, it might be a lot of money to ask for, but this bike delivers.

Specifications

Capacity: 1811cc
Power: NA
Torque: 139Nm @ 3000rpm
Wet weight: 388kg
Seat height: 660mm
Price: $33,995 rideaway
Detailed specs: www.indianmotorcycle.com