Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

by **Stereo** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 11:13 am

The story of Burt Munro is firmly ingrained alongside the story of John Britten when it comes to motorcycling in NZ.... and is the kind of story that makes a great movie...

This clever weird old man from Invercargill NZ creates a streamlined land speed record attempting bike using the engine out of a 1920 Indian.... The origional speed of those bikes was 50 Mph....

The director did an awesome job of portraying rural NZ life.... Having lived in a similar place in the 80's I can certainly imagine that life would have been exactly like that.... It doesnt actually say when this movie was created, but it looks to be the early 70's....

Anthony Hopkins has the worlds worst Kiwi accent but hey.... He's from invercargill (NZ's equivelant of tasmania)....

I dont want to spoil the movie at all for those of you who are planning on watching it (and I think you should) so I am not going to go into detail about it..... But I think its a fantastic movie, well written, well produced and with a great story line....

I give it 3 thumbs up - in a circle... :supz:

by **mick_dundee** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 11:43 am

So that makes it beter than Brown Bunny or whatever it was then?

by **Tack** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 2:29 pm

I saw the movie last night. I liked it however there were a couple of things I reckon that could have been done a bit better.

I don't think it was highlighted enough that Burt Munro hand made an entirely new engine that was substantially modified from standard including casting his own heads and building DOHC units as well. He didn't make parts to replace standard parts that were broken, he "made" crank shafts and heads and valve trains etc etc and produced a very powerful engine that was twice the capacity of the original. He made cylinders from the old city gasworks pipes, he made con rods out of an old Ford truck axles, he made fly wheels out of high tensile pressed plate.

I believe that his engineering skills were really remarkable considering his lack of machinery. It just that from some of the reviews I've read seem to think he is running a standard "old Indian" motorcycle when in fact it had no resemblance to the original bike. Not that they have to concentrate on the engineering however I don't reckon they really made that part clear enough.

The second was his accent...i thought it could have been done better...but then again maybe no-one other than Australians and New Zealanders would have understood any of it..... :lol:

I was wondering if anyone can remember what Burt says in the movie about following your dreams or else you will become a cabbage... :lol:

by **Draven** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:10 pm

Ive been told by a number of people that its a great movie and that i should go and see it, but with my work i cant really get time to see it just yet