The World's Fastest Indian revisited [w/video]

Polaris Industries, the company that until recently was probably best known for its ATVs and snowmobiles, bought Indian Motorcycle in 2011. With that purchase it plans to challenge Harley-Davidson for the emotions, and the Benjamins, of the classic American motorcycle rider. The Thunder Stroke 111 is the engine that will power the revival, and to celebrate the new V-Twin the company produced a tribute to what may be Indian's most famous bike, The World's Fastest Indian.

That was the name of the movie and the real-life episode that saw New Zealander Burt Munro break the land-speed record for under-1,000-cc bikes on the Bonneville Salt Flats on a 1920 Indian Scout streamliner.

The tribute to the man and the bike is called "The Spirit of Munro," a custom streamliner built to house the Thunder Stroke 111 and ridden by Todd Eagan across a California dry lake bed. It was built by Jeb Scolman of Jeb's Metal & Speed in Long Beach, California, and as you can see in the two short films below, both the engine and the bike are rather cool.