Indian U.S. Mail Forecar: A Circa-1911 Postal Motorcycle Experiment
At first glance, this strange three-wheeled U.S. Mail machine looks a lot like Harley-Davidson’s early Motorcycle Truck. The narrow front box, two small front wheels, and motorcycle rear section all point in that direction. A closer look shows something much more unusual: this is an Indian mail-collection forecar photographed during a U.S. Post Office Department experiment in Washington, D.C.
An Indian, Not a Harley
When I first came across the front view, I assumed it was another version of Harley’s Motorcycle Truck, only narrower than the examples I had seen before. That was a reasonable mistake. Both companies were looking for commercial work, and both experimented with motorcycles that carried a box between two front wheels.
The second photograph makes the identity much clearer. Behind the mail box is an early Indian single-cylinder motorcycle with the company’s older frame layout and its distinctive rear-mounted “camelback” tank. The postal equipment may dominate the first view, but from the side it is unmistakably built around Indian hardware.
The Washington Mail-Collection Experiment
Motorcycles were already finding their way into postal work before this Indian appeared. In 1907, the Post Office Department allowed rural carriers to use bicycles or motorcycles under certain circumstances, including times when their horses needed rest. By 1908 and 1909, motorcycle makers were advertising directly to rural mail carriers, hoping to replace at least some of the work then being done with horses and wagons.
The Indian forecar was part of a more specific experiment. Postal records describe the Department beginning trials with motor tricycles in 1911 so carriers could collect mail from curbside boxes without dismounting. The official caption for this scene identifies an Indian motorcycle modified into a tricycle with a hinged box on the front and places it in Washington, D.C., circa 1911.
That wording also clears up what the machine was built to do. This was not simply a motorcycle carrying a mail sack on a rural delivery route. It was a collection vehicle. The rider pulled alongside a street box, opened the special front compartment, and transferred the letters while remaining at the controls. In the first photograph, the whole idea is caught in the middle of the job.
Older Indian Parts on a New Postal Machine
The most interesting part of this Indian is that the motorcycle underneath the postal body appears older than the experiment itself. Indian used the curved camelback tank over the rear wheel on its early singles, and the machine also has the earlier diamond-style frame. Indian moved to its more modern loop-frame design in 1909, with the tank relocated above the engine.
Those details make the mail forecar look closely related to Indian’s Delivery Van machines from roughly 1906 through 1908. They do not prove that this is a specific 1906, 1907, or 1908 model, but they do show that its major motorcycle components belong to Indian’s pre-1909 design period.
It is possible that Indian adapted an older chassis or assembled the postal machine from parts that remained on hand. That was my original theory when I noticed the tank and frame, and it still fits what can be seen in the photographs. What has not surfaced is factory paperwork confirming how the forecar was assembled. Its exact engine specification, serial number, carrying capacity, and production quantity remain unknown, so the pictures can take the identification only so far.
How the Hinged Mail Box Worked
The front of the machine carried a tall rectangular U.S. Mail box between two wheels. A hinged section faced the curbside collection box, allowing the carrier to move the mail directly into the vehicle without climbing off the motorcycle. The wide front track supported the container while stopped, and the rear half retained the basic controls and riding position of a conventional motorcycle.
Whatever the machine was like to steer or ride with a load, the purpose was practical. Postal collection involved repeated stops, and every stop normally meant putting a machine on its stand, dismounting, opening the street box, loading the mail, and starting again. The forecar was an attempt to remove several of those steps. There is no surviving test report describing its handling or reliability, so it would be a mistake to invent a mechanical reason for why it disappeared.
Harley-Davidson Tests a Similar Motorcycle Truck
Indian was not the only American manufacturer chasing postal business. At nearly the same time, Harley-Davidson was developing its own three-wheeled Motorcycle Truck, another forecar-style machine with cargo carried ahead of the rider. The U.S. Post Office tried the Harley in Milwaukee during the winter of 1912–1913.
The warm weather in the Washington photographs once tempted me to say that Indian must have delivered the mail first, but the surviving dates are not precise enough to establish a clean race between the two companies. The better conclusion is that the Indian and Harley experiments overlapped during a short period when the Post Office Department was willing to test several motorcycle-based solutions.
Neither forecar became the standard answer. The Department’s historical account says there is no known record of contracts being issued for the mail-tricycle experiments. That does not tell us exactly how either machine performed, but it does tell us that a large order did not follow. Harley’s Milwaukee test was also brief, and the company soon concentrated on other commercial motorcycle layouts.
Why Postal Forecars Disappeared
The need for motorized mail service did not disappear with these two machines. Parcel Post began in 1913 and increased the amount and variety of material carriers had to move. Motorcycle manufacturers responded by promoting ordinary motorcycles with cargo sidecars, a layout that could be adapted without building a specialized front end. Period photographs and advertisements show how motorcycles and sidecars continued carrying U.S. Mail after the experimental forecars faded from view.
Automobiles were authorized for rural routes by 1915, and four-wheeled cars and trucks increasingly made sense as mail volume grew. Motorcycles remained useful where their low cost, narrow size, and ability to cover poor roads outweighed their limited capacity, but the dedicated front-box tricycle never became a common postal vehicle.
Three-wheeled motorcycles were not a dead end. Harley-Davidson later found lasting success with the Servi-Car, which placed its load behind the rider and served repair shops, police departments, and commercial customers for decades. The contrast helps explain how experimental the Indian and Harley forecars really were: the market accepted motorcycle-based utility vehicles, just not this particular arrangement for collecting the mail.