Burt Munro and the World's Fastest Indian
How a man from New Zealand broke motorcycle speed records with a home modified motorcycle
Earlier this year In March 2013, Indian Motorcycles made a surprise announcement, they were producing a new motorcycle and it was going to be called 'The Spirit of Munro'. The motorcycle, a custom built streamliner with a Thunder Stroke 111 engine, was being built as a tribute to Burt Munro and all the speed records he had set in his life on his Indian motorcycle.
Previously to this, in 2005, a film had come out called The World's Fastest Indian which was based on Burt Munro and his lifetime's achievements, setting faster and faster speed records. The film features a man who, with very little in the way of money and resources, travels to the US from New Zealand to test run his motorcycle on the Bonneville salt flats. The film achieved much critical acclaim as one of the best motorcycle movies ever made and starred Anthony Hopkins as the slightly grumpy old Burt Munro who was a driven man determined to keep on beating his own speed records.
Herbert 'Burt' Munro was born in new Zealand in a town call Invercargill in 1899 and first tried out a motorcycle when he was fifteen. He started out riding a British built Clyno motorcycle, but in 1920 sold this on to buy an Indian Scout which he would race on and improve for the rest of his life along with his 1936 Velocette which he also used for racing. His Indian Scout was one of the first ones ever made, in fact it was only the 627th bike out of the factory and had a top speed of 55mph – which was not nearly fast enough for Munro. So in 1926 he decided to take matters into his own hands and start modifying and tuning it himself to gain more speed. This was a challenge in itself as Munro worked as a motorcycle salesman and did not have a lot of money or time, so he had to spend nights working on his bikes to get them up to speed.
Bitten by the motorcycle race bug in his twenties Munro began to compete in motorcycle races in Australia. He tried everything from drag racing, flat track, scrambles, road races, hill climbs , economy runs (once recording 116 miles per gallon in one of these runs), and trials – you name it he tried it.
Eat, drink and sleep motorcycles
Munro and his wife divorced in the mid 1940s and Munro built himself a low ceilinged garage come living space where he could eat, drink and sleep motorcycles and which incidentally got round the New Zealand planning regs as it was technically a work shop not a living space so was allowed to have a low ceiling.
In this workshop Munro could dedicate all his time to improving his racing bikes and even gave up his day job in order to concentrate further on his obsession with speed. In his workshop he designed his own bike parts, sourcing his raw materials from all sorts of likely and unlikely sources. He scavenged parts like a Ford truck axle which with five months labour he turned into a part which lasted twenty years, and his micrometer (a precision measuring instrument) he made from an old spoke. He melted down mixed metals to cast bike pistons and custom made practically all the parts for his Streamliner until it was a pretty unique race machine. This was all born out of necessity as he did not have the funds to buy the replacement parts required to get his speeds up so necessity was the mother of invention for Munro and luckily he had the engineering skills needed for the job.
Getting faster!
During this time Munro wasn't a recluse, he was a member of a motorcycle club and had a group of friends who helped each other with their motorcycles, although it seems hard to imagine when Munro had time as he was reputed to be working sixteen hour days on his motorcycle in his workshop.
Also in this period Munro began to accumulate New Zealand speed records starting with the open road record which he set in 1940 at 120.8 mph and which was then unbeaten for twelve years. Munro was not content with resting on his laurels but was ever determined to keep on pushing those speeds up and in 1957 gained the New Zealand beach record with a speed of 132.38 mph. Gradually though, Munro outgrew New Zealand and after visiting the Utah Bonneville Salt Flats this speed track became his next ambition.
Bonneville or bust
With Bonneville in his sights, Munro finally managed by 1962 to save up (helped by donations from his friends) enough to book a passage for himself and his Munro Special aboard a rusty old cargo ship bound for the USA. Despite his best efforts the money he had saved still wasn't enough so he worked his passage over to the US as ship's cook. When he finally reached America he bought an old station wagon and proceeded to trundle to Bonneville in it with his Munro Special as its precious cargo.
Then what was almost a disaster struck – Munro had not realised that he would need to pre-enter to make his speed runs at Bonneville so he was told that he would not be allowed to race. The system in the USA was different from New Zealand where you just arrived then raced but luckily for Munro he had American friends in the race world who managed to talk officials into letting him enter despite his somewhat unusual race bike!
They were right to let him compete – in his first inaugural run at Bonneville he set a new world record of 178.97mph with his engine configured with 850cc of displacement. Once he had started Munro continued to compete at the Bonneville salt flats until 1967 when he set an under 1,000cc world record, on 26August on a 47 year old machine - by this time he was 68 years old. This record still stands today. His life of speed was not without risk to put it mildly and Munro suffered many crashes during his years of speed competition.
Munro had travelled to Bonneville ten times in all, the first time for "sightseeing" purposes and then subsequently kept going back to race, eventually racing nine times at Bonneville, and setting three world records, in 1962, 1966 and 1967. He also once qualified at over 200mph , but because it was an unofficial run it was not counted.
Finally in 1975 his health was not good enough for him to have his competition license renewed so he was reduced to making secret runs on his Indian and Velocette undeterred by heart problems caused by the many crashes he had suffered.
Then in 1978 when he had just taken his daily constitutional Burt Munro died of a heart attack.
The speed records he achieved in his lifetime were remarkable, especially considering that they were made on an unorthodox home modified motorcycle and now posthumously he has achieved fame partly due to the film The Worlds fastest Indian which highlighted his amazing dedication and his achievements.
1962 - 883cc (53.9 cubic inches) class record of 288km/h (178.95mph)
1966 - 1,000 cc (61 cubic inches) class record of 270.476km/h (168.066mph)
1967 - his engine was bored out to 950cc (58 cubic inches) and he set an under 1,000cc (61 cubic inches) class record of 295.453km/h (183.586mph). To qualify he made a one-way run of 305.89km/h (190.07mph), the fastest-ever officially-recorded speed on an Indian. The unofficial speed record (officially timed) is 331km/h (205.67mph) for a flying mile
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