42 / American Iron / Issue #379 AIMag.com

J

OHN VISKUP HAS A COUPLE OF

very nice Covington Customs-built Harley

Davidsons. He digs those bikes a lot, but

he also has an Indian Chief Vintage bagger.

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had this nagging feeling about the overall

look. Something seemed lacking, particu-

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and his Woodward, Oklahoma,based Covington Customs

shop should be no stranger to anyone reading these pages.

Not only does Covington Customs build custom motorcycles

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a wide range of billet and other components for various

Harley-Davidson models. The shop is a family affair, with 14

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specializes in the fabrication part of the biz while Pee Wee is

the powertrain go-to guy.

What all of the above means is that Covingtons Customs

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ing up” the Indian bagger. It all started with an idea: Owner

Viskup and the Covington clan wanted it to look like it could

have been built by Indian as a concept machine. The general

idea was to mix a vintage classic look with a modern machine.

At this point, Dave Covington drew up a series of concept im-

ages. Much of it was based around a custom leaf spring front

end, which of course, has vintage Indian written all over it.

Dave had constructed one years ago for another project,

and they decided the basic idea was perfect for the Indian.

The big issue was that much of the Indian frame is built