Indian Pursuit and Indian Guardian Trademarks

Indian has filed trademark applications for two potential model names: “Indian Pursuit” and “Indian Guardian“. The two trademark applications, initially filed with the USPTO and then with the Australian intellectual property office, were registered for use on “Motorcycles and structural parts therefor.” As usual, the trademark applications don’t offer many details leaving us to speculate on what the names will be used for.

The Indian Pursuit sounds like a police vehicle, and Guardian has a similar vibe to it. It’s unusual, however, for manufacturers to pick a new name just for law enforcement use. Typically, these vehicles are modified versions of commercial models, and their names are the same, just with “Police” or “P” tacked on to them.

Harley-Davidson‘s law enforcement lineup, for example, consists of the Police Road King, Police Electra Glide and Police Iron 883. Meanwhile, Honda still offers the ST1300P police motorcycle, despite the civilian version being discontinued in 2013. Closer to home is Indian’s parent company, Polaris, which offers police packages for its off-road vehicles, all keeping the same Ranger XP branding as the civilian models. As Chris Cope reminds me, however, Victory has a history of unique names for police models in the Enforcer (based on the Kingpin) and Commander (based on the Cross Country). Strangely, neither of those names were ever trademarked. As such, we can’t rule out the possibility of the Pursuit and Guardian being police models or civilian models.

Looking at Indian’s current lineup, two possibilities seem to make sense: more FTR variants or more models making use of the Power Plus engine. The latter seems a likelier fit to both Pursuit and Guardian names, perhaps adding a cruiser and full-on tourer to follow the Challenger bagger using the liquid-cooled 1768cc V-Twin. The next FTR variant is expected to be an adventure touring model, and neither new trademark seems to fit the mold.

The trademark filings don’t provide any indication on when we can expect these new models. Indian already has several registered names in the works, such as “ Renegade” and “ Raven“, both filed over a year ago and likely to arrive first. A 2022 launch may be more likely, especially with the pandemic causing delays across the industry.