Great Escape

The son of a stunt flyer father and a troubled mother, the young Steve McQueen led a perilous early life, Shunted between his grandparents' farm, his abusive stepfather and those tough streets of Indianapolis.
As a teenager, he drifted from job to job before joining the US Marines, where he finally found a focus for his wild energy, one that would take him all the way to Hollywood.
The Races
Bud Ekins was already an accomplished dirt-track racer when McQueen first met him in 1959. Both were young, handsome and utterly fearless. So it wouldn't be long before the nascent Hollywood star joined his biking mentor, riding Triumphs on unforgiving desert tracks.
Throughout his acting career, McQueen continued to race, in events like the Greenhorn Enduro in the Mojave Desert and the 1964 International Six Day Trial (ISDT) in East Germany, perhaps his most celebrated racing event. Steve McQueen once said that he could never be sure whether he was an actor who raced, or a racer who acted. No matter: he excelled at both.
The Bikes
Steve McQueen owned more than a hundred motorcycles. But he was no trophy collector; each bike meant something to him, each bike was ridden by him. His love affair with Triumph began early and remained true throughout his life. His first was the original 1959 Bonneville, bought from an acting buddy and looked after by Bud Ekins.
In the Californian deserts and in his famous 1964
ISDT appearance in East Germany, McQueen raced a succession of TR6s, barely modified from their road-going specs. And it's the TR that will live forever in the public memory, as the bike that took him across the wire in The Great Escape.