Indian Chief Bobber Dark Horse Jack Daniel’s Edition. Probably the worst bike. But I love it.
- Ben Grayson
- Aug 17
- 7 min read
Updated: Aug 20
Indian Chief Bobber Dark Horse Jack Daniel’s Edition
There are good motorcycles. There are bad motorcycles. And then there are motorcycles that are objectively quite bad at being motorcycles, yet somehow make you want to sell a kidney to own one.
Welcome to the Indian Chief Bobber Dark Horse Jack Daniel’s Edition.
It’s too heavy, too expensive, too uncomfortable, too thirsty and too loud. It has the turning circle of a canal boat, the suspension travel of a skateboard and after a decent ride you’ll be Googling chiropractors before you’ve even taken your helmet off.
I absolutely love it.
Doom and gloom
It’s not exactly party time in the big American cruiser market.
Harley-Davidson’s UK dealer network has taken a kicking. By March 2025, seven Harley showrooms had reportedly closed, including Oxford, Plymouth and Southampton, while other long-standing dealers had either disappeared or stepped away from the franchise.
Then there's Donald Trump and the ongoing game of international tariff tennis. The UK hasn't slapped the same 50% retaliatory tariff on big American motorcycles that was threatened in the EU, but Trump's wider tariff policies have still created considerable uncertainty for manufacturers, supply chains and costs. Harley-Davidson actually withdrew its 2025 financial forecast partly because of tariff uncertainty, while Polaris also identified tariffs as a major financial headwind.
And Indian has had its own upheaval.
In February 2026 Polaris completed the separation of Indian Motorcycle, selling a majority stake to private-equity firm Carolwood LP and turning Indian into a standalone company. Around 900 employees transferred with the business, along with its manufacturing and design operations. Indian says sales, servicing, parts and dealer support continue, but you don't need an MBA to understand why a major ownership change creates questions in the minds of customers preparing to spend twenty-odd-grand on a motorcycle.
Then there's the competition.
Not necessarily from Harley, BMW or Triumph, but from the enormous adventure bike parked three spaces down.
British riders have fallen in love with bikes that do everything. Adventure bikes, sports tourers and crossover machines offer luggage, weather protection, electronic suspension, heated everything, 200-mile ranges and enough rider aids to make you wonder whether you're riding the motorcycle or merely supervising it.
Against that backdrop, a gigantic air-cooled American V-twin with one seat and approximately three millimetres of rear suspension appears about as relevant to modern British motorcycling as a fax machine.
And yet...
I think we still need bikes like this.
On paper this bike makes absolutely no sense
Let's pretend we're sensible for a moment.
The Chief Bobber Dark Horse weighs around 315kg. It carries only 15.1 litres of fuel. It has a low solo seat, forward controls and just 75mm of rear suspension travel. The 1,890cc Thunderstroke 116 is air cooled, which means in summer it produces enough heat around your gentleman's department to potentially affect your plans for future children.
Long journeys?
Technically possible.
Advisable?
Depends how much you like your spine.
The riding position looks fabulous when you're stationary. Feet forward, arms up, chest out. You feel like the bastard lovechild of Sons of Anarchy and a Hugo Boss advert.
After two hours you feel like you've fallen down the stairs.
The fuel tank isn't enormous either, although this is actually quite clever because your backside will demand that you stop at roughly the same time as the motorcycle.
Then there's the price.
A normal Chief Bobber Dark Horse is already a premium motorcycle, and start throwing accessories at one and £25,000 isn't difficult territory to enter. Indian's own current UK stock listings include customised Chiefs around that figure.
And the accessories aren't exactly Halfords money.
Want to personalise your already expensive lifestyle motorcycle?
Of course you do.
That'll be another kidney.
So objectively, buying one of these in Britain is ridiculous. We have rain. Potholes. Roundabouts. Speed cameras. Traffic. Petrol stations every eight miles and roads seemingly designed by somebody who owned shares in the white-line industry.
None of this is what the traditional American cruiser was created for.
But that's also precisely why it's brilliant.
Some bikes exist just because they can
Cruisers represent something bigger than their specifications.
Freedom.
Easy Rider. Route 66. Endless desert highways. A V-twin thumping away underneath you while the horizon disappears somewhere into Arizona. Never mind that you're actually on the A43 approaching Kettering. In your head, you're Peter Fonda.
That's the magic.
These bikes weren't conceived around negotiating Milton Keynes roundabouts or sitting at 70mph behind a Kia Sportage. They're an interpretation of that wonderfully romantic American idea that you should simply get on a motorcycle and bugger off somewhere.
Which explains some of the engineering.
Who cares if it's loud when the nearest house is 40 miles away?
Who needs a 250-mile tank range when every petrol station sells beef jerky?
Who needs sophisticated suspension when Route 66 apparently doesn't contain Northamptonshire potholes?
The result is something increasingly rare: a motorcycle where the experience matters more than the specification sheet.
And that brings us to the second reason cruisers still matter.
Lifestyle.
Look at what's happening elsewhere in motorcycling. Retros, scramblers, café racers and bobbers have exploded because plenty of riders aren't interested in chasing another 20 horsepower or shaving four kilograms from a bike they'll predominantly ride to a café on Sunday. They want something that makes them feel good. Something they turn around and look at after parking. Something with character.
The Chief has character coming out of every available orifice.
And while European and Japanese manufacturers make some superb retro machinery, nobody does this particular flavour of excess quite like the Americans.
Everyone should own a cruiser once
We have become completely obsessed with specifications.
Six-axis IMUs. Cornering ABS. Semi-active suspension. Radar cruise control. Hill-hold. Blind-spot monitoring. Riding modes. Electronically adjustable windscreens.
All brilliant.
But somewhere along the way motorcycles have become incredibly good at insulating us from the very things that made them exciting.
Ride a big modern adventure bike and it's astonishingly competent. It'll cover 500 miles, carry your luggage, keep you warm and probably make you a flat white if you delve deeply enough into the TFT menus.
But sometimes competence is boring.
The Indian isn't clinically competent.
It vibrates.
It pulses.
It makes noise.
Twist the throttle and two enormous pistons start having an argument directly beneath your testicles.
The 1,890cc Thunderstroke 116 produces 162Nm of torque, and although roughly 79bhp doesn't sound particularly heroic from an engine approaching two litres, horsepower completely misses the point.
You don't rev it.
You surf it.
Open the throttle and the entire motorcycle seems to tense its shoulders before punching itself towards the horizon on one enormous wave of torque.
Could a modern sports bike annihilate it?
Obviously.
Would I rather ride this to the pub on a sunny Sunday afternoon?
Quite possibly.
Because nobody buys a bobber to set a Nürburgring lap record.
You buy one because you want to feel cool.
And this thing makes you feel really bloody cool.
My test bike
And mine isn't even the normal one.
This is the wonderfully named Indian Chief Bobber Dark Horse Jack Daniel’s Limited Edition.
Because apparently "Chief Bobber Dark Horse" wasn't sufficiently American already.
Indian and Jack Daniel's have been collaborating for years, and this particular bike was the seventh limited-edition machine produced by the two companies, developed with Klock Werks and inspired by Jack Daniel's Old No.7 Tennessee whiskey.
Only 177 were produced worldwide.
And here's the wonderfully ridiculous bit.
There is actual Jack Daniel's whiskey mixed into the Super Graphite Metallic paint.
I'm serious.
Indian literally poured whiskey into the paint.
It's difficult to imagine anything more American unless they'd fired the paint onto the tank from a shotgun while a bald eagle played the Star-Spangled Banner.
Each bike was hand painted and received its own numbered Montana Silversmiths badge. There are Jack Daniel's details scattered around the bike, white-centred wire wheels, a solo saddle, Klock Werks tinted deflector, adaptive LED headlight and unique finishes on that enormous Thunderstroke motor.
Underneath all the Tennessee theatre is the familiar 1,890cc, 49-degree Thunderstroke 116 V-twin, driving through a six-speed gearbox and belt final drive.
You've got three riding modes – Tour, Standard and Sport – plus ABS, keyless ignition and cruise control.
And despite looking like something built in a shed in 1948, there's a genuinely clever four-inch touchscreen Ride Command display hiding inside the circular instrument pod.
It gives you Bluetooth connectivity, bike information and proper turn-by-turn navigation without sticking a massive iPad on the handlebars and ruining the styling.
That contrast sums the Chief up rather nicely.
Old-school theatre with just enough modern technology underneath to stop it becoming annoying.
Well...
Too annoying.
Because there are quirks.
Lots of them.
The rear suspension is brutally short.
The thing weighs as much as a small moon.
Low-speed manoeuvring requires some commitment.
The single front disc doesn't exactly scream "315kg motorcycle".
It throws heat at you.
The tank range isn't wonderful.
And after a decent stint in the saddle, dismounting becomes a carefully choreographed procedure involving several noises normally associated with pensioners getting out of an armchair.
My chiropractor may end up becoming part of the running costs.
But then you thumb the starter.
That enormous V-twin catches.
The whole bike gives a little shudder.
And suddenly you don't care.
For reference, this special edition launched in America at $24,499, while the few examples appearing in Britain command serious money. There's currently an unregistered example advertised through the official Indian network at £25,995.
Which is objectively ridiculous.
Naturally, I want it.
Verdict
The Indian Chief Bobber Dark Horse Jack Daniel’s Edition gets an astonishing number of things wrong.
It's too heavy.
It's uncomfortable.
It's expensive.
It's impractical.
It doesn't go particularly far between fuel stops.
It has virtually no luggage capacity.
It only carries one person.
There are faster bikes, better handling bikes, more comfortable bikes and vastly more practical bikes available for considerably less money.
So if your motorcycle purchase begins with a spreadsheet, don't buy one.
In fact, don't even test ride one.
Because motorcycles like this aren't bought with spreadsheets.
They're bought because you walk into the garage on a Sunday morning, see it sitting there and think:
Fuck me, that's cool.
And suddenly the weight doesn't matter.
The fuel range doesn't matter.
The chiropractor doesn't matter.
Even the price starts becoming something you can perform increasingly elaborate mental gymnastics to justify.
The modern motorcycle market is full of extraordinarily capable machines designed to do almost everything.
The Chief Bobber does almost nothing particularly well.
Except make an ordinary ride feel like an occasion.
And maybe we've become so obsessed with making motorcycles better that we've forgotten that's what they're supposed to do.
Rating
Practicality: 2/5
Comfort: 2/5
Value: 2/5
Handling: 3/5
Technology: Surprisingly, 4/5
Character: 6/5
Ability to make you stare at it through the kitchen window: 11/5
Overall: Probably the worst bike I've ridden in ages.
I bloody love it.
Specifications: | |
Engine: | 1,890 cc (Thunderstroke 116) |
Peak Power: | 79 bhp |
Peak torque: | 162 Nm @ 3,200 rpm |
Seat height: | 662 mm (26 inches) |
Wet weight: | 315 kg |
Tank capacity: | 15.1 ltrs |
Tech/Features: | Keyless ignition, cruise control, 4" touch screen, Bluetooth, Navigation, Ride Command App. |
If you're intresting in purchasing this bike you can find out more by clicking here:
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