KEY POINTS:
The international success of a Kiwi movie helped renew interest in a motorcycle brand, about to be manufactured again after being largely out of production for half a century.
The first new models of the Indian motorbike could be rolling off production lines in the United States in
the next few months - a sight not seen since the manufacturer went bust in 1953.
Americans Steve Heese and Stephen Julius saw a preview of Roger Donaldson's film The World's Fastest Indian featuring the motorbike and plan to start production at their North Carolina plant later this year.
They bought the tooling to manufacture the Indian's distinctive parts and intellectual property rights including the trademark, engineering and design specifications.
The two Harvard Business School classmates told Fortune magazine they had seen a preview of the movie starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and it had reinforced their interest in the brand, which they bought at auction in 2004.
"There are some brands you have to club to death for them to truly die," Mr Julius said.
Wayne Affleck, rally organiser of the Burt Munro Challenge, staged two months ago in Southland, was delighted to hear of the bike's imminent revival.
"That's excellent news because there's certainly a lot of interest that's been regenerated in the brand by the movie," said Mr Affleck, deputy chairman of Southland's economic development and tourism agency. Although some Indian bikes had been made in the past few years, the brand had almost disappeared.
Of the 30 to 40 Indians taking part in the Invercargill challenge, attended by 2100 racers and 25,000 spectators, most were older models - although one was manufactured around 2003. The rally proved so popular, it will be staged again this year on the last weekend of November.
Bert Munro tinkered in his Invercargill backyard for years to improve his 1920 Indian Scout before shipping it 13,000km to the salt flats of Bonneville to have a crack at the world land speed record in that motorbike class. The highest speed he achieved, a record 190.07mph (306km/h), was almost four times the bike's original top speed of 55mph.
The two American entrepreneurs believe the time is right for the Indian to make a comeback, saying they will produce their first model - the Chief - later this year for about US$30,000 ($42,500) each.
Indian was owned by a Canadian investment group and later a Boston private equity fund but an attempt to resuscitate the company in the late 1990s failed.
Mr Heese said motorcyclists were a passionate group, and would have brand names tattooed on themselves. "There's not another product category on Earth that drives people to do that," he said.
The pair will move the Indian's headquarters from California to North Carolina, where they have successfully revived the Chris-Craft leisure boat business.
Mr Affleck said Munro fans would be keen to buy the new bikes, which could see the Indian make "one hell of a comeback".
Fame at last
* The late Burt Munro has become the first Kiwi inducted into the US Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum.
* The museum is based in Pickerington, Ohio, and showcases a number of early-model Indian motorbikes.
* Munro was a pensioner when he took the fastest ride recorded for an Indian motorcycle.
* The museum praised him for "devoting his entire life to pursuing his dream of setting a world land-speed record".
* It called him "a humble do-it-yourselfer", saying he had chased his ambitions for 50 years.
