For good reason, the Indian Scout was voted cruiser of the year by the bike press in 2015; in terms of handling and performance there’s nothing in the sector to touch it. Indian’s 2016 upgrade, the Scout Sixty, is sure to trouble the judges again this year, because it’s every bit as impressive, yet fully £1,500 cheaper than the original.
If ever a bike exemplified the notion that less is more, this is it. Indian has cut engine capacity from 1133cc to 999cc (which happens to be 60 cubic inches, hence the name) and given the bike five gears instead of six, but beyond that and a few cosmetic changes, it’s the full-fat Scout to the life. Chrome gives way to black paint, the seat is vinyl, and the company has tinkered with the fuel mapping, but where on earth it has found £1,500 worth of savings defeats me.
Like the Scout, the Sixty is built around a V-twin engine that you’d think was too good for an American cruiser; smooth and responsive, it needs no rubber mounts to cure blurred vision, but retains the performance characteristics you’d expect from the breed. Chief among these is copious torque — despite the capacity loss, the engine still puts out 66 lb ft and the curve is pretty flat, so it will happily chug up a mountain in top gear. Which is of course fifth rather than sixth in the new incarnation; with one cog missing, the gear spacings have been altered to leave no noticeable gaps, and as top gear runs the same ratios as before, I believe no one will feel the lack.
The only way to tell the Sixty apart from the Scout is the black paint on the handlebars, the engine, the wheels and so on; size is the same — the low-slung seat and the forward-set pegs are identical. The suspension feels better-engineered than that of the original Scout, which could be clunky under stress. Unusually for an American cruiser, the Sixty goes precisely where you point it and it eats up corners. The loss of engine puff is barely noticeable on the run; the original Scout needed to be revved if you wanted to make good progress and the Sixty is no different, but there’s nothing frantic about the motor and even with standard Euro 4-compliant exhausts it’s as nippy as you like. A set of Remus pipes might make a reasonable difference to performance (and a serious difference to the noise level), but that’s not what you buy a cruiser for. Comfort is unimpeachable, although the high bars put the rider out into the wind and the lack of any sort of weather protection means that if you want to investigate the Sixty’s top speed (a whisker off 105mph), you’ve got to be able to stand the pressure. As with all but the smallest bikes from this year, antilock braking is standard.
Build quality is superb — Indian’s parent company, Polaris, cuts no corners on any of its products, either in engineering or finish — and pride-of-ownership quotient is high. The Sixty is so capable that I can see it whacking lumps out of the cruiser competition, but the issue for Indian is whether, with the Sixty in the window at £8,999, anyone will want to shell out £10,499 for the Scout.