Product Description

The amazing story of Kiwi motorcycling legend, backyard engineering genius and land speed record holder Burt Munro. Munro was the archetypal eccentric, ‘number-eight-wire’ Kiwi inventor. He took an original Indian motorbike and modified it in his Christchurch shed so that it was capable of extreme speeds. With this bike he broke several international speed records at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in 1967 (he was clocked on several occasions at over 200mph). From small town Invercargill in the 1920s to heroic deeds in the USA, Munro was still inventing (and planning another ‘assault on the salt’) up until his death in 1978. This is very much a true-life ‘little guy beats the odds’ story; Munro still holds several records in the US – as a mark of respect the category he raced in was ‘frozen’ for all time. The publication of the book has been timed to coincide with the movie, The World’s Fastest Indian, directed by Roger Donaldson and starring Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16658 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

About the Author
Tim Hanna is a former advertising copy writer, he has also written for television and is a motorcycle enthusiast in his own right. He has personal connections to director Roger Donaldson.

Customer Reviews

See the film and read the book
The book provides a wealth of detail of the work carried out on the engine and the incredible near death accidents whilst racing motorcycles throughout his life. The Indian was not his only motorcycle and if you wantr to find out the other motorcycle he raced you will need to read the book. He lived for motorcycling and the book makes a good read for all motorcyclists and enthusiasts - a man who lived life to the full and a book to inspire to others that they too can reach their goals. Well researched and a book to be read again and again.

One-sided biography
In the introduction, the author admits that in the lack of information, some of the descriptive aspects of the book are shall we say, `up to the writer's prerogative'. Whilst the technical and factual aspects of this book are extremely informative and interesting, I felt that I had only read half of someone's life story.

From his childhood, and throughout his quest for speed, the book portrays Bert as some sort of tragic mechanical doyenne to the God of speed - something that he couldn't help but pursue. Whilst his undoubted mechanical and engineering skills, combined with his single-mindedness and nerves of steel are beyond question, it was the darker side to Bert that I found more interesting - and missing.

As a man who was chasing speed records right up until his death on a 50year+ old motorbike he was undoubtedly a hero, but his dedication to his dream left a tight-wad man without a wife (left), or many (good) friends. Whilst this is perhaps more of a character assessment of Bert than the book itself, an acceptance on the part of the author that Burt was not only a speed freak, but frequently a plainly unpleasant man, would have been welcome.

One of life's One-Offs.............
Yup, this is a great story of one of life's true one-offs.

Burt Munro.

I'd have loved to have met this guy, even though I guess he might possibly have been a less than perfect character. (Reading between the lines, and of what others have said of him)

It wasn't just his courage, guts and determination that I felt, but the heroism that is in constantly rebuilding and re-engineering machines that fail, and break. Long hours in a lonely workshop.......... hour after lonely hour, after lonely hour, after lonely hour, after lonely hour, after lonely hour, after lonely hour.

You get the drift?

I've loved motorcycles all my life, and have never had anyone else but myself do any work on any of them....... about 25 bikes in all; British, Italian American and Japanese. I've worked on them in pretty much all circumstances. Out in the open, all night into the rising dawn, in weather so bitterly cold the water I poured over the tools to warm them froze solid as it ran over the ground. Under polythene sheet draped over the bike in pouring rain and wind. In an improvised workshop no more than three feet square, and in case you're thinking it........ no, you can't get a bike in a shed that small. I could only use it for modifying components and engines taken off the bike.

I've modified them, tried things that don't work or fail, so you have to go back and start all over again. I've been so frustrated on occasions, that I've either destroyed components when the last twig I was hanging onto broke, or just plain cried over the tools. I've cursed the sadists who designed the damn thing in the first place and even prayed "Please, PLEASE God, make this work", although I wasn't in the least bit spiritual at the time. Struggling with machines you love brings a unique desperation sometimes. A huge satisfaction at other times.

I tell you all this, not because I'm comparable to this amazing man, but to illustrate in some small way just what it takes to do what he did. It's a lonely struggle against the odds, is an extremely frustrating pastime, and is often taxing of even the most patient person. As I said earlier, so many lonely hours, and often cold and miserable hours too. It's awkward, fiddly, and takes a lot of skill. It taxes ingenuity and inventiveness. It takes great diagnostic skills, often complicated by so many variables acting simultaneously on one another. Most frustratingly of all, the effort and skills are completely unappreciated by those who don't experience it.

This man achieved the impossible in the performance he wrung out of this very old Indian motorcycle........... quite amazing, ESPECIALLY pretty much out of a shed. I found myself shaking my head in disbelief many times, and felt intensely his disappointments.

I can't help thinking of Rudyard Kipling's poem, `If', and pretty much all of it applies to this man, especially......

"Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;"

How many people these days can truly say ANY of this poem applies to them?
It was far more common a couple of generations ago.
If this book even begins to take your interest, and as you're reading this, that level of interest is quite enough............

Man or woman, mechanic and engineer or not, it is an inspiring and uplifting story.

BUY IT!

Buy the DVD too.......... A little bit out of line with the book, but it's excellent nonetheless.

K. :o))))