Burke & The Super Shaker

Built and raced by Hot Rodding pioneer Bill Burke of San Gabriel, California, the Harley-Davidson-powered Bonneville Streamliner Super Shaker made its one and only appearance at the Bonneville Speed Trials in August 1959 with Burke at the controls. This was the second time the inventive Burke, long an advocate of “Ford 60” flathead V-8 engines in various states of tune, had made use of a Harley-Davidson V-twin engine for a four-wheeled Bonneville racer. It was an idea many dismissed as futile, but it was not the first time Burke stood convention on its head.

By then already a veteran of the salt flats, Burke had been consumed by Hot Rodding by his mid-teens. He built his first Rod, a modified 1929 Ford, in 1937 at the age of 19. Soon afterward, he became the 45th member of the Southern California Timing Association and built his first racer, a modified Model T roadster with a classic Model B flathead-4. Burke reached his first racing milestone in that car, running 110 MPH the first time out and becoming one of the first five to turn 100 MPH on the dry lakes.