The World’s Fastest Indian – Not Where You Would Expect It!
The World’s Fastest Indian is one of my favourite movies because it is a true story of how a complete underdog went after his dream – and won!
A couple of years ago, Anthony Hopkins portrayed Burt Munro in ‘The World’s Fastest Indian‘ Movie.
Burt Munro was a crazy New Zealander who pushed his home made, and highly modified 1920′s Indian Motorcycle past the 300 km/hr barrier in 1967 at the Bonneville Flats in the United States to break the land speed record for his class of motorbike.
The trailer for The World’s Fastest Indian is shown below.
It’s a great movie. If you haven’t seen it, check it out.
Anyway, one would think that Burt, who died in 1978, would be immortalised in all sorts of statues and paraphanalia and that The World’s Fastest Indian bike would be forever enshrined in some monument somewhere.
Well, sort of.
Guess Where The World’s Fastest Indian Is?
Here are a couple of photographs of the The World’s Fastest Indian bike as it stands today.
Check out the tiny seat that Burt would have to squeeze on top of!
The World's Fastest Indian - Bike Seat
What’s bizarre is that The World’s Fastest Indian bike is now placed – in a hardware shop!
You can enter the E Hayes shop in Invercargill, New Zealand, free of charge to check out the bike for yourself.
I guess the location is just as unpretentious as old Burt Munro!
More info about the E Hayes shop is shown here.
If you’re ever in Invercargill, New Zealand almost at the bottom of the Southern Hemisphere, check out The World’s Fastest Indian!
World’s Fastest Indian – More info
Check out more at The World’s Fastest Indian DVD, World’s Fastest Indian Burt Munro A Scrapbook of His Life, The Road to Bonneville and One Good Run: The Legend of Burt Munro.
That sums up a lot of our culture. I love New Zealand.
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anthony Reply:
May 5th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Actually, I agree with you re: New Zealand Culture – understated and offbeat! It’s good fun there!
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Just to correct this article, the actual indian built by burt munro is the red indian at the front without the cowling fitted. The bike with the cowling fitted described here as being the bike is actually a replica built for the movie and is fitted with a 750cc ducati engine for use on the salt lake scenes.
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Anthony Hopkins is one of the veteran actors in Hollywood that should be given a lifetime acheivement award.”;.
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when i hear the name Anthony Hopkins, i always tought of the movie Meet Joe Black.”;-
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Great movie and apparently Anthony Hopkins really enjoyed making it. Many of the props in the movie really belonged to Burt Munro also.
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I had to come and look at this – I think the motorcycle should be in a museum somewhere, not a hardware store!
Phil.S recently posted..Anthony Hopkins –an Insight into his Art and Music
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Awesome bike and interesting to hear about the modification for the movie – looks like one for the Christmas list. Great post, thanks.
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