Indian Scout Bobber Limited review: Beauty and a beast

 

It's been a couple of years since there was much news from Indian Motorcycles in India, but the Polaris-owned company has just launched its full range of 2025 Scouts in India. We had a chance to take the Scout Bobber for a spin on a very wet couple of days in Mumbai and it turned out to be heaps of fun.

 

The 2025 Scout sticks to the original formula of being a long, low and gorgeous motorcycle powered by a liquid-cooled V-twin engine. 2025 brings the highest amount of choice we’ve seen yet with a total of 8 different variants split between two engine sizes, and each variant being available in three trim levels. 

 

The bike here is the Scout Bobber Limited which comes with the bigger 1250cc motor (against 999cc), but doesn’t get the TFT display and a few other features that come by upgrading from the Limited trim to the Tech trim.

 

 

The visual differences between all the variants is largely down to wheel sizes, front and rear fender shapes, exhaust shield designs and handlebar types. The Scout Bobber has chopped fenders at both ends that look super cool but are hopelessly ineffective at keeping splatter off you in the monsoon. It also runs on 16-inch tyres with fat rubber at both ends, including a chunky 130 section front. The blocky Pirelli MT 60 RS tyres are an unusual choice, but they work well and contribute to the mean attitude this bike so effortlessly exudes. 

 

The seating position only lends to the bike’s involving, sporty feel, You sit super low in the 649mm seat, which is great for short riders being able to get their feet down. However, the forward set footepegs as well as the reach forward to the handlebar means even tall riders will find decent comfort here. This is an oddly engaging and enjoyable riding position and it works in tandem with the awesome engine between your feet.

 

Indians have always had likeable engines and this liquid-cooled 60 degree v-twin is a fantastic one. Despite being liquid-cooled it has the low rpm rumble and thunder you’d hope for from a big American twin and it's about as loud as one can hope for from a bike that meets the latest regulatory norms - enjoyably vocal, but not obnoxiously so. 

 

 

What I enjoyed was the duality to this motor. Should you wish to settle into a chill cruise, the long gearing and swells of torque are easy to enjoy - and this is without any hesitation or unhappiness from the motor from as low 1,500rpm. But twist the throttle open in anger and boy does this engine reward! 

 

Right from 2,000rpm onwards you get an aggressively strong pull, but unlike the big air-cooled V-twins that run out of puff with revs, this thing just keeps piling on the power until it's time to snatch another gear at around 7,000rpm. With 105hp and 106Nm, it has the brute force to rival a multi-cylinder middleweight and the violence of its acceleration suggests a 0-100kph time in the sub-4 second ballpark. 

 

 

The long and low nature of this bike also means it can pull off long, lurid drifts without feeling scarily snappy like a sportbike could. There’s a silly amount of fun to be found if you’re the sort who likes to turn traction control off. Throttle response is pleasantly smooth and the three riding modes make a noticeable difference to the riding experience. I found myself in Standard most of the time, because Rain felt a bit too dull and Sport encourages bad behaviour a little too often!

 

In the city, you’ll find that the bike isn’t horribly difficult to ride. The steering isn’t excessively heavy and neither is the clutch. In fact, at 246kg, it's just 5 kilos heavier than the Super Meteor 650 and it's vastly more motorcycle than that RE. Of course, if you get stuck in bad jams, you’ll be presented with tremendous heat emanating from the engine, although I never got any high coolant temperature warning signs. 

 

 

Despite the E10 sticker on the fuel tank, Polaris assures us that the Scouts have been homologated as E20 compliant in our market. While the fuelling is mostly very smooth and predictable, the bike does occasionally stall in heavy traffic at very low revs. When it does that, it displays a Low Oil warning, which is quite alarming at first, but you learn to ignore it because the warning always goes away as soon as you restart. This is one among a few other quirks that we’ll mention a little further on.

 

 

The biggest downside to this bike, sure enough, is literally its ‘down side’ - the ground clearance. With just 109mm, you have to exercise extreme caution over tall speedbreakers to prevent smacking expensive engine components onto the road. I managed to get by without contact, but heavier riders will have to be extra extra careful here. It's just the way it is with this style of motorcycle and the story is similar with the liquid-cooled rivals from Harley.  

 

Handling is limited, with only 31 degrees of cornering clearance and the footpegs do scrape very easily. It's best to try and keep the bike upright as much as possible and the Scout is very stable and predictable at all times, both at high speeds and through corners. 

 

 

Braking from the single front disc is dull and needs to be complemented with plenty of rear brake usage. The bike slows down decently well, but with this much power, more stopping performance would be appreciated.

 

 

Suspension travel is restricted - 120mm at the front and just 51mm at the rear shocks. Surprisingly, there is a pleasant amount of plushness within that limited travel, and coupled with the comfy seat, this bike can be enjoyed even on roads that aren’t perfectly smooth. Sadly if you like in an area with badly made and badly maintained roads, your lower back will be in for a beating. Still, it's not as bad as you would think when you look at the bike.

 

And look at it you will, because this is a properly handsome motorcycle. The long swooping tank, the clean flowing lines and that big engine on proud display - it really is a feast for the eyes. Attention to detail is quite nice up close as well and this does feel like a high quality and expensive product. 

 

 

That being said, the fuel filler cap has no lock and the tiny key looks like it belongs to a rickshaw rather than a CBU big bike. As for the display, I don’t mind its charming old school design, but the single toggle switch on the right handlebar is quite tedious to use while scrolling through all the menus in the tiny LCD display. 

 

 

The new Scout range is priced between Rs 12.99 lakh - Rs 16.15 lakh for the base variants and strangely Indian tells us that the mid-spec Limited versions are only a few thousands more than the base models. That puts the Scout Bobber you see here at 13.99 lakh which is good value and comfortably below the equivalent  Rs 16.70 lakh Harley-Davidson Sportster S. 

 

There are just six official Indian dealers across the country, so buying one may not be easy depending on where you live. It also has its quirks and limitations, but this is a tremendously appealing bike for the way it looks, its approachable ergonomics and its awesome performance. If the idea of a sporty cruiser sounds good to you, you’ll love what the new Indian Scout has to offer. I know I did.