John Munro gives visitors the inside scoop on Burt's life

Friday, 12 February 2021

Burt Munro's son is thrilled that Invercargill is keeping his father's spirit alive.

John Munro swells with pride when he talks about his dad.

“There's no other event that's attracted so much international attention to Southland,” he said on Friday, during a special tour of Invercargill.

John is the son of Burt Munro, who made headlines when he broke multiple world speed records on his 1920 Indian Scout in the 1960s, and on Friday, John gave a special tour, sharing stories about his father's life with bikers who had come to town for the annual Burt Munro Challenge.

The tour is one of the ways Munro is keeping his father’s memory alive.

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Standing next to a statue of his father Burt Munro at Queen's Park in Invercargill, John Munro says his dad put Southland on the map.

At 86, Munro is the youngest of four siblings. His sisters Margaret Popenhagen and June Aitken are in their mid-90s and he's unsure who will continue keeping his dad's legacy going.

“Can you ask a simpler question?,” he asked jokingly, before deciding that as long as the Burt Munro Challenge was going, people would remember his Dad.

While mechanical inclinations run deep in the Munro family – Burt's uncle, Jim, invented the Munro topdresser and the Munro seed sower – John grasps to find examples of younger Munros tinkering.

The most notable would be Burt’s great-nephew Lee Munro who is a well-known motorcycle racer and set his own world speed record on an Indian Scout V-twin in 2017.

“He’s taken a few trophies at every track in New Zealand,” John said.

And with that, he disappeared, off to his car to fetch something.

According to South Pacific Motorcycle Tours operations manager Kim Johnston he did this often.

John Munro (middle) ended his tour of Invercargill at the bronze statue of his father. Some bikers in the tour group posing with him are (from left) Ken Sanders, Jude Klever, South Pacific Motorcycle Tours operations manager Kim Johnston, and Wayne Grieve (back).

“He's amazing, he comes out with these gems,” she said, before John returned with an award the family received when his dad was inducted into the Motorcycling New Zealand Hall of Fame in 2016.

“They were fairly slow in reacting. About 40 years too late,” he said, jokingly.

Johnston and Munro junior had known each other for a few years.

He was quiet like his dad, she said, but cheeky.

They met while John was promoting the Spirit of Munro whiskey and the two bonded over both coming from families of petrol heads.

The two decided to put together tours to coincide with the Challenge.

“We built it together and started to create something specials,” Johnston said.

“It’s another tribute to Dad,” John said before adding that South Pacific Motorcycle Tours was among the only companies still offering bike tours since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

This year’s group included 14 New Zealand riders from Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Christchurch.

Munro shared special memorabilia he usually tucked away at home, and enjoyed taking them to see his family home on Tramway Rd, and his grandparent's home on what would eventually become Conyers St.

“Conyers didn’t exist then,” he said, “It was just a grass lane going up to the cow shed.'