Indiana Leather Jacket

The Z1R Indiana is new for 2018. Its a sharp style in a medium brown color. Its got a removable thermal liner and has gun pockets! I like the color and finish of the leather in this jacket. Its not the softer “vintage” finish you find often on many brown color styles, but rather it has a slightly pebbled and harder surface finish. I think this style will be easy to use and won’t scuff up as easily as some of the softer finishes in brown.

Like most other Z1R leather jackets, this one has great gun pockets located just inside the main zipper on either side. Both pockets are identical and each one is lined with a heavy black canvas and also has a couple wide elastic straps to hold the hardware in place. The pockets close with a single snap.

The leather under the arms and behind the shoulders in back is perforated so this style will move some air. And the two zips on the chest are combination vents/pockets, so you can leave those zips open to allow some air in too. I’d advise this jacket for temps up to “warm”, but I think you’ll find this one to be too hot for really hot weather. But for cooler weather, this jacket comes equipped with a removable full sleeve thermal liner to add a bit of insulation. The lining materials on this jacket are nice too… it’s a mesh material to let that air move through the vents freely, but it should be tough and wear well.

The Indiana has straps and a couple snaps on each side of the waist so you can choose which snap position best fits your mid section. Under those straps are expansion zippers on either side of the waist. In my sizing comments, I mentioned that the max belly on the jackets was more generous than the others by about 2” and that was with the side zips closed, but with them open, the belly area gets even more generous.

If you want to beef up the impact protection of this style, the jacket has provisions for adding shoulder, elbows and back pads. We recommend D3O armor, see links below. For this style jacket, I’d recommend the standard CE 1 armor for the shoulders and elbows. I would guess the thicker CE 2 armor will be too thick for the size of the sleeves and might throw off the fit of the jacket in the shoulders. A CE 1 or 2 back pad would work fine.

I really like this new style and I think you will too. Its reasonably price and looks great. The build quality is excellent and it should give years of service.