Invercargill, at the far southern end of New Zealand. It's the late
1960s and two blokes sit in a modest shed drinking tea. The old bloke is
telling stories about his life; the young bloke, a junior reporter, is
typing earnestly on his Olympia portable typewriter. Dramatic tales
abound--of youthful scrapes, motorcycle races, and ingenious repairs, of
international travel and friendships and road trips, of high speeds and
accidents and meetings with dutiful policemen. Burt Munro became known
around the world through the 2005 movie The World's Fastest Indian,
but had long been known to motorcycle fans as a colorful character and
speed record-holder. Our young journalist, Neill Birss, moved away from
Invercargill and the interviews he had typed out were never published.
In fact, they only resurfaced under strange circumstances many decades
later. Here, Munro's voice is as fresh and his stories as vivid as the
day he told them to the young reporter.