Polaris Industires has just announced its acquisition of the historic Indian Motorcycle company. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the deal sees one of the most historic names in American motorcycling finding a home with a major player in the motorcycle industry. The move is an interesting one for Polaris, as the company already owns cruiser and touring motorcycle manufacturer Victory Motorcycles.

According to the company press release, Indian will function as an autonomous business unit, but will likely gett help from Polaris’s engineering department, along with the obvious supply chain and purchasing power of the larger brand.

Truly official now, John Hopkins has signed-on with the Crescent Suzuki British Superbike team for the 2011 season. Hopper’s first duty on the BSB team will be to test at the upcoming sessions at the Spanish tracks of Cartagena and Guadix. Crescent Suzuki also says that Hopkins will ride as a wildcard entry at the World Superbike round at Donington Park in March, which precedes the season BSB opener at Brands Hatch in April.

“I am really looking forward to BSB and working with Crescent again, it will obviously be a different crew but I know they are a great group of guys and that will be a good foundation to start the season. It is going to be a huge challenge for me, I know there are new tracks to learn, but I am not too concerned,” said Hopkins

Mark Miller took the 2010 MotoCzysz E1pc to victory today at the Isle of Man’s TT Zero race. Miller lapped the MotoCzysz E1pc around the Mountain Course with an average speed of 96.820 MPH and with a time of 23:22.890. Just shy of the 100 MPH average speed barrier, Miller passed through the Sulby speed trap going 135.300 MPH, and topped 140 MPH at one point.

Following Miller was Rob “Bullet” Barber who averaged 89.290 MPH on the streamlined Team Agni machine. James McBride finished on the podium with a 88.653 MPH average on the Man TTX race bike. Jennifer Tinmouth on the second Agni finished 4th, just seven seconds behind McBride.

Today I want to broach the subject of what it means to be not only a motorcycle startup, but what it means to be an American motorcycle startup. For a majority of our readers, the concept of American motorcycling is something that we have understood since our days as children. No matter how you came to this industry/sport/lifestyle, as a reader of A&R you no doubt have a strong personal compass of what is means to be an American motorcyclist, and it is something that you touch and understand on a daily basis.

The business side of this understanding is less straight-forward though. It is one thing to identify personally with what makes an American motorcycle, but it is a very different exercise to build a product that evokes that same emotion to the mass consumer. This concept becomes even more relevant today, as the motorcycle industry is still recovering from the news of Buell’s closure and Harley-Davidson’s drastic measures to stay afloat. With no precognition of this impending news, I headed to Portland, Oregon to talk to Michael Czysz, CEO of auto-biographically named MotoCzsyz. Czysz’s journey presents a unique story about a company that has twice attempted to create an American-bred sportbike, and as such is the appropriate company in which to frame our topic about what it means to be an American motorcycle startup.

The first Fischer MRX has been delivered to a customer, and has garnered some positive reviews. “The engineering is great, the seat is very comfortable, the exhaust sounds really good, and the MRX turns heads wherever I go,” says John from Minneapolis, MRX owner #1.

All signs seem to point to Jamie Hacking replacing the injured Makoto Tamada at World Superbike’s stop at Miller Motorsports Park later this month. In fact, Hacking would be replacing Sheridan Morais, the reigning South African Superbike champion, who is currently filling in for Tamada at WSBK’s round at Kyalami. Tamada is still recovering from having a metal plate inserted in his hand after sustaining a wrist fracture at the Monza Race 1 pile-up. While the news is not official, Hacking hinted at it when talking to Roadracing World, saying “there’s a possibility I might do it.”

It would seem a new player has entered the American Sport-Tourer market. The Kneeslider broke this morning that Motus American Motorcycles, a company founded by Brian Case and Lee Conn a year ago, is well along in their development of an all new next-generation, sport-touring motorcycle with a proprietary V4 powertrain.

UPDATE: Here is a link to buy the Roehr on eBay

By now you have surely heard of the Roehr 1250sc. The American made superbike that has a supercharged Harley-Davidson VROD motor at its heart, which makes 180hp. This 432lbs (dry) MV Agusta look-a-like will be sure to turn heads down at the local bike night, especially when you’ve paid out the nearly $50,000 price tag (before taxes and licensing). The regulation friendly bike will meet all CARB and EPA  requirements, and will be DOT certified for sale in all 50 states. The 1250sc will be available for delivery starting March 2009.

Enough of that, here’s how the press release should read:

If you like bikes that take their styling queues from the early 2000′s, make the same amount of power as bikes in their class without forced induction, and still costs 67% more than a Ducati 1098R, then this is the bike for you. In which case, the option to purchase the bike through eBay will be especially appealing (I couldn’t make this up if I wanted to). The Roehr 1250sc is representative of everything that is truly American, at least all of the negative stereotypes that people often label upon the American auto industry.

While as much as we’d like to see a great American made motorcycle, it looks like Roehr hasn’t learned from the lessons of Ford, GM, and Chrysler. Bigger does not mean better, and there is a replacement for displacement: It’s called ingenuity.