INDIAN ORNAMENTS, BUT NOT PONTIAC

Chris Daniels of Mooresville, N.C. makes faces for the Indian motorcycle “war bonnet” fender ornaments that have the full-featured appearance of the original factory style mascots. Chris started manufacturing these faces while he was restoring his own 1948 Indian Chief. When it comes to a proper restoration, Daniels tends to be a very fussy guy and he was not totally happy with the reproduction chrome war bonnets and translucent plastic warrior faces that were being marketed at the time. “I looked and looked but I couldn’t find what I wanted in order to restore my bike properly,” Chris recalls. Chris finally decided to visit a company that sold the resins used in casting plastic items. They taught Chris how to make molds so he could cast a two-piece (split up the center) Indian warrior face with sharp, factory-like features. Chris says that Starklite Indian Motorcycles (www.starklite.com) makes an aluminum war bonnet body that’s a good reproduction with the properly curved style base. When this body is combined with the sharp-featured split, two-piece warrior face that Daniels is casting, you wind up with a reproduction that is as close as you can get to an original. Chris can be contacted at 677 Highland Ridge Rd., Mooresville, N.C. 28115 or by calling (704) 236-5410. Last time we looked, his “Indian Bonnet” fender lens was selling for $50 -- not $500. His email is cdaniel677@aol.com.