American-V talks to Ola Stenegärd: the man behind the new Indian Chief

While best known in Europe for his work with a certain Bavarian motorcycle manufacturer, Ola Stenegärd has been a custom bike builder for all his adult life – he placed second at the AMD Championship of Custom Bike Builders in 2010 – but then he is Swedish: it stands to reason.

His first motorcycle assignation, however, was at the ill-fated Gilroy Indian, and like his collaborator on the Chief – Rich Christoph, who worked on Victory as an intern while out of college before going on to Milwaukee – he is now turning his attention towards realising Indian’s potential.

We met them both at Wheels and Waves in 2018 and the buggers didn’t tell us that they were designing a Chief for the street: they were too busy riding, enjoying the party in the year that the rains failed to dampen our spirits and officially launching the FTR1200, so we’ll forgive them that.

And with the three members of the Chief family now announced, we got the chance to talk to Ola about them, and to learn about the process that resulted in the 116-inch, steel-framed Indian cruiser that is filling the gap between the Scout and the Tourers. A Indian Chief to challenge Harley-Davidson’s Softails.