Spirit of Munro revisited
Indian Motorcycles pays tribute to a Kiwi record-breaker by fitting its allnew engine into a one-of-a-kind ‘Munro Special’ streamliner of which our Burt would have been proud, says Dave Moore.
DURING Daytona’s annual speed week this month Indian Motorcycles, the first and oldest motorcycle company, revealed a custom-built streamliner named the ‘‘Spirit of Munro’’. This one-of-a-kind vehicle was unveiled in a special surprise announcement, following the reveal of Indian Motorcycles’ new Thunder Stroke 111 engine – in fact, the Spirit of Munro machine employs the power plant as a show case for the 2014 models from the company which will be using the unit on the road.
Fully custom-built, the Spirit of Munro is an all-metal tribute to the Indians of old, and was named in honour of Burt Munro’s Munro Special, the historic 1920 Indian Scout that broke the under-1000cc land-speed record in 1967 at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
It was all famously portrayed in the motion picture The World’s Fastest Indian.
Indian’s public relations people made sure the Southland icon’s family was involved in the project, and their release on the project reads: ‘‘The Munro family is very happy to see such a wonderful tribute to our father,’’ says Burt’s son, John Munro. ‘‘We see how dad’s passion inspires motorcycle riders to this day, as the Spirit of Munro will surely do for years to come.
‘‘We are a brand that will always strive to push the envelope in everything we do, so when the idea of building a streamliner to both showcase the new engine and pay homage to the racers, mechanics and engineers of the past landed on my desk, it was an easy decision,’’ says vice president of Polaris Motorcycles, Steve Menneto.
The streamliner was designed from the ground up to house the new Thunder Stroke 111 engine and showcases its power and performance. The Spirit of Munro is not simply a display; it was built to run. A custom exhaust and intake system is mated with a chain drive conversion to allow for the tall gearing necessary for top speed runs. The allaluminum bodywork was hand-formed using traditional tools and techniques. Wrapped around the modern Thunder Stroke 111 engine is a custom chassis capable of handling top speeds.
‘‘Part of the process of building a new motorcycle is building many pre-production and production test engines,’’ said Gary Gray, product director for Indian Motorcycles.
Tapped to construct the Spirit of Munro was Jeb Scolman of Jeb’s Metal and Speed in Long Beach, California. Jeb’s extensive credentials building land speed racers revealed him as the perfect builder for this tribute machine.
The all-new Thunder Stroke 111 is being built in Osceola, Wisconsin, at the Polaris Industries Engine Assembly Plant, with future full unit motorcycle assembly taking place in Polaris’ state-of-theart production facility in Spirit Lake, Iowa.