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Cross country at Thunder in the Glens

The new 2011 Victory Cross Country made a brief  appearance at the Thunder in the Glens rally in Aviemore. The  white Cross Country complete with the new optional top box  was getting road tested by Andy  a journalist for American V magazine.  Glen, Dave and Davie from the Glasgow dealers along with Area 51 has a stand at the Winking Owl pub in the main street. A warm welcome was given to all the victory riders who attended, they had four or five bikes on show , which, as always, got a lot of attention.

The Victory Tartan Story

The idea for a victory tartan was born on the 4th of July, well not quite the 4th, it was in July, mid July , just after the Americana International 2009 held in Newark. Victory had just celebrated their 10th birthday, Polaris Britain Ltd put on a wonderful spread, there was birthday cake, beer and plenty of goodies, Oh and did I mention beer. I thought, what can I do to repay their kindness and help celebrate Victory’s birthday. Well as it happens at that time I was ordering a kilt for a wedding and on a search of the web I discovered that not only did the local Harley chapters have their own tartan but Harley Davidson have one as well, it’s an orange and black tartan registered with the Tartan Registrar in Edinburgh, therefore, an official tartan. The penny dropped, a Victory tartan would make the ideal gift. The first stage was to design the tartan.

Tartan or plaid in Scotland is a woven material usually wool with an arrangement of different coloured stripes, the warp and the weft cross each other to form the “sett”, the breadth and colours of the stripes being the same in both directions. Tartan in Scotland has traditionally been closely related to family names or clans, latterly the use of tartans in modern Scotland and elsewhere in the world has seen the emergence of the corporate tartan as part of a business or social club image.

The rational or design for the Victory tartan is based on the Victory Motorcycles Tank badge. The black is the background. The grey is representative of the silver lettering and border. The gold is the wings to either side of the globe. The globe is represented by the azure and green, there is no green in the tank badge, so using a bit of designers license. The green and blue is used to represent the earth, land green and water blue, to convey Polaris Industries, Inc’s, commitment to the environment. The Azure is also the colour of the Scottish national flag, the St Andrews cross, and preserves the Scottish connection with the tartan. Finally, the red is the red “V” in the middle of the badge, there is no particular reason for the red to be a twin line, other than there is very few tartans with a twin red line making the tartan unique and easily recognisable. The tartan design had to be unique in choice of colours and thread count in order to pass the scrutiny of the Keeper of the Scottish Register of Tartan

That was 18 month ago, since then I was in contact with Mike Pedler the Sales and Marketing Manager for Polaris Britain Ltd. Mike’s permission was required by the Keeper of the Scottish Register of Tartan in order for the tartan to be made an official corporate tartan. Permission was given, and on 22nd June 2010 the tartan was officially registered, (registration number 10,235) just in time for the tartan and framed registration certificate to be presented to Victory Motorcycles UK, at the Americana International 2010 rally.

In November 2010 the tartan was expertly woven and tailored into a kilt and waistcoats by Geoffrey tailor weavers and kilt makers, I was lucky enough to be invited to visit the weaving mills owned by Geoffrey tailors, within The Edinburgh Old Town Co premises on Castlehill in Edinburgh the weaving mill is situated next to Edinburgh Castle in an old water reservoir carved out of the castle rock, that many years ago supplied the old town of Edinburgh with its drinking water , the upper parts of the mill are open to the public and provides tourists with a spectacular opportunity to see the weaving of tartan cloth. If you are visiting Edinburgh the mill is well worth a visit and admission is free.

The Kilt, and as far as I know the only one of it’s in existence, was worn for the first time at the Victory Ambassadors meeting and at the Birmingham NEC during the first day of the MCN Motorcycle show, on a very cold and windy day in December.

This is a copy of an article sent to Victory rider magazine in America there has been no word yet as to wither it will be published.

The Victory UK Ambassadors, at the Motorcycle Show, NEC Birmingham