Talk:Burt Munro
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[edit] Land Speed record?
Burt's name does not appear in the article about land speed records, why? It seems that if he holds any broken/unbroken record, it should be there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.135.33.182 (talk) 17:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC).
Also wouldn't the New Zealand abbreviation of Albert be Bert rather than Burt, which latter is a very North American spelling?
[edit] Atheism?
Just curious here. During the course of The World's Fastest Indian, Munro discusses life and makes the comparison of a man's to a blade of grass. He closes by essentially saying that this life is all we've got. I would consider including Munro under the "atheists" category with other notable figures, but for the fact that I'm not sure if he ever expressed such views in real life. The film was largely true to his story, but did take some exceptions (twin brother dying in youth as opposed to a sister at birth, etc). Can anyone confirm or deny, one way or another? Thanks. --AWF
I'm not sure, but in the film, he is portrayed as a believer of God. The evidence is in a deleted scene with Tina, the transvestite he meets at the motel, he states that she shouldn't get surgery because she should keep what God gave her. --Majinvegeta 00:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
It seems this should just be reverted to this stub version [1] that existed prior to the rathr crude copy and paste. Limegreen 21:54, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree, is there any reason why we can't do this? Lisiate 23:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I assume it will happen after the week is up. I presume the week of waiting is on the offchance that the person who posted the copyrighted material has permission and proves such.Limegreen 00:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I would suggest a metric conversion alongside the "61 cubic-inches."
- That's a good call. 61 cubic inches seems a very arbitrary number, until you realise that it is the same as 1000cc! --Limegreen 21:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
16.387064 cubic centimeters is approx. 1 cubic inch & 0.0610237 cubic inches is approx. 1 cubic centimeter.
THEREFORE 61.023744 cubic inches is 1000 cubic centimeters. Hope this helps Jim Jacobs 10:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)~
Having watched the film and read the wikipedia article on Munro, I find that the picture is only loosely based on "the true story" and it is rather a highly dramatized version for commercial audiences.
In particular, he did not achieve the 324Km/h in his first visit to the salt plains, but 5 years later. Nor it seems, did he get to this speed the time he slowed the cycle down by sticking his head up, loosing his goggles and crashing down. In the film they have made a collage of these three events: his first visit, beating the speed record, and loosing his goggles.
In fact, most of it is a nice road movie and a drama of an old man facing a severe heart problem. I was very surprised to find out that he lived another 16 years from the point at which the film ends.
In my opinion, it would be more accurate to say "loosely based on a true story" or "a highly dramatized account of his achievements". Cgonzalezdelhoyo 19:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
First of all it's the salt flats not the salt plains, second I thought the movie toned the story down a bit, as apposed to it being sensationalized. I think that the problem is that there is little understanding of just how fast 178 mph is on a motorcycle with a flat head engine. I found the film to be much more true to reality than most docudramas, It has to take place in a couple hours you know.
[edit] Improvements to this article
I think it's time to discuss improvements to this article, because this article quite frankly sucks. It's nothing but a brief description of his life. Any suggestions on how to make it better, longer, more detialed? --Majinvegeta 00:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I would like to see some more information about the actual record attempts.
The movie is confusing on this aspect. The movie purports to show a record being set but it also shows him only making a single direction pass that seems like it would not have satisfied the requirements for a record.
As has been noted he does still hold an official land speed record. It is listed as the 1000CC S-F body type record set in 1967 at 183.586 MPH.
Source: http://www.scta-bni.org/SCTA-NewWeb/Bonneville/BNIrecs_bikes.htm
But what is the S-F body type? It is amazing that a record from 1967 still stands. A casual look at the lists suggests that all other records have been set much more recently. Have other people tried to break his record and failed? Why is this record still around?
Davefoc (talk) 20:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Photo Caption
On the main page it says, "replica," but the data linked to the photograph indicates that it is the real machine.
I would guess it is one of the two replicas built for the film which are very accurate replicas of Burts original bike. I have seen one of the replicas a couple of times and was very impressed both times. Leaderofearth 11:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Name
Shouldn't this article be called "Bert Munro"? "Burt" is very much an american shortening of the name "Albert", while "Bert" is more common in the UK and former British Empire countries. Astronaut (talk) 23:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
- Seems he himself used Burt: http://www.indianmotorbikes.com/features/munro/munro.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Legotech (talk • contribs) 23:38, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah I read that, but indian motorcycles are an american company. I did a google search and "Bert Munro" got 2920 hits and "burt munro" got 668,000 hits but I wonder how many of those hits have an american influence and how many have a UK/NZ influence? Even though Anthony Hopkins did throw a few americanisms into his performance, I just strikes me as a little odd that a kiwi would abbreviate his name to an american spelling. Do we have some guidance from a relative or someone who knew him? Astronaut (talk) 00:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
