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Burt Munro's
World's Fastest Indian


2010
Burt Munro
Burt Munro
Original
2010


Anthony Hopkins
Burt Munro
Burt Munro
Burt Munro
Disaster


Movie Poster
Anthony Hopkins
Movie Scene
Movie Poster
Burt Munro


The home built Indian Scout motorcycle that New Zealander Burt Munro used to set land speed records in the 1960's will be on display at Corbin's Rider Appreciation Day!

Munro's story was the basis of the 2005 movie The World's Fastest Indian. The movie starred Anthony Hopkins as the man with a dream to run his home-built 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle, dubbed the Munro Special, on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. Munro saved for years in spite of limited means to make the trip to America, finally coming over on a shoestring budget in 1962. He was 63 at the time with a bad heart, yet Munro still managed to overcome numerous obstacles to set world records, even as a muffler was burning the flesh on his leg.

In 1967, Munro coaxed his Indian to 183.58 mph. That set a record in the category of "streamlined motorcycles under 1,000cc." To qualify, he made a one-way run of 190.07 mph, the fastest ever officially recorded speed on an Indian.

"At the Salt in 1967 we were going like a bomb," Munro told a New Zealand magazine. "Then she got the wobbles just over half way through the run. To slow her down I sat up. The wind tore my goggles off and the blast forced my eyeballs back into my head. I couldn't see a thing. We were so far off the black line that we missed a steel marker stake by inches. I put her down - a few scratches all round but nothing much else."

Munro was born in Invercargill, New Zealand, in 1899 and began riding motorcycles at the age of 15. He bought the Indian Scout in 1920, which he would continuously modify for the rest of his life. Munro quit working in the late 1940s so he could devote his time fully to improving his racing bikes.

Starting in the 1940s, Munro earned a number of New Zealand speed records. By the late 1950s, Munro's bikes were getting so fast that he was running out of room to run them on New Zealand's speed courses. He considered trying to run on some of Australia's dry lakes, but in 1957 after visiting the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, his goal became to compete on the flat and vast expanse of Bonneville's salt bed.

With his savings and additional funds from motorcycling friends in New Zealand, Munro finally made the trip to America in 1962 aboard a cargo ship, where he worked as the ship's cook. Once in Los Angeles, Munro bought a car for $90 to haul the Munro Special to Bonneville.

Munro arrived at Bonneville ready to make his runs only to be told he was not pre-entered so he wouldn't be allowed to compete. But his American friends talked officials into letting Munro make his runs. Tech officials looked the other way, ignoring many of Munro's unorthodox means of putting his ancient Indian together. In his inaugural run at the Salt Flats, Munro set a world record of 178.97 mph with his engine configured with 850cc of displacement. Munro continued to compete at Bonneville through 1967, when he was 68 years old.

Munro died in 1978. He was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2006.

Story courtesy: Kent Miller, The Taft Independent