The World’s Fastest Indian

Ongoing

 

Herbert 'Burt' Munro was born in Edendale, Southland, in 1899. In 1920, Burt purchased a brand new Indian Scout motorcycle for £140. He spent the next five decades modifying it using a variety of unorthodox, but innovative, engineering techniques designed to make it go faster. In the 1960s, he took the Munro Special to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA, where he set two world land speed records.

 

This stage of Burt’s fascinating life was recreated for the film The World’s Fastest Indian, by Roger Donaldson (2005). The exhibition features near identical replicas of Burt’s motorcycle and streamliner (as used in the film), a documentary about Burt, and a 'gasifier' - one of Burt’s wartime inventions.