2020 Indian Challenger (Photo by Barry Hathaway)

2020 Indian Challenger | Road Test Review

In just a few short years Indian has forged a complete lineup of American V-twin cruisers, baggers, touring bikes and street trackers that have both taken on the competition and established Indian as a well-rounded manufacturer of both contemporary and traditional motorcycles. The name of one of its new motorcycles for 2020 makes its intentions very clear: Challenger. Aimed squarely at Harley-Davidson?s popular Road Glide line, at the heart of the daringly styled Challenger with its frame-mounted fairing is Indian?s new liquid-cooled Powerplus 108 V-twin. Though its 1,768cc displacement is 122cc smaller than that of the 1,890cc Thunder Stroke 116 found in most of Indian?s heavyweight lineup, the PowerPlus revs higher and makes more torque. On the Jett Tuning dyno it also out-pulled all of the competition by cranking out an impressive 113.3 lb-ft of torque and 107.6 horsepower when we ran it for the December 2019 issue. So the bike not only delivers right-now power for rapid acceleration, its liquid-cooled design also means much less heat radiates into the cockpit, eliminating our biggest complaint about the air-cooled Thunder Stroke.
2020 Indian Challenger (Photo by Barry Hathaway)

Rather than implement partial liquid-cooling, Indian gave the Challenger full conventional liquid cooling, wrapping the front frame downtubes around the blacked-out radiator to help downplay its...