Indian Scout

Listen to just a taste of Mr. Munro.

Burt Munro bought a brand new 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle for about $50.

Brand new, 1920.

He bought the Indian in 1920 when he was 21 years old, and he was still modifying and racing that same motorcycle nearly 50 years later.

A bit of background first because the story behind this film is nearly as good as the story in it.

This is the true story of Burt Monroe, a New Zealander who spent about 20 years boring out a 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle in a shed behind his house in Invercargill, right at the bottom of the South Island, and then took it all the way to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to chase a land speed record.

Roger Donaldson wrote and directed this, and he had been circling Burt Monroe for most of his working life.

Back in 1971, he made a short documentary about him called Offerings to the God of Speed, filmed over more than two years while Monroe was still working on the bike.