Warbird Information Exchange

Completed for The Imperial War Museum in London for their 'Great Escapes' exhibition 2005/6 a working replica of the famous motorcycle from the 1963 film - The Great Escape. This bike was constructed from a 1960 T110 after extensive research including a long conversation with Bud Ekins, stunt rider & builder of the original machines. Bud, of course, made the big jump in the movie. There were two bikes made originally, one using strengthened forks for the jump from an earlier machine necessitating the use of an earlier front wheel arrangement.

The second, or back-up bike, was used for most of the publicity stills and has the correct, full-width hub for the year. Hence there is some confusion about the actual spec. Unfortunately both bikes were sold off after returning to the States when filming was over.

Time & budget constraints meant this replica was not 100% correct, most notably the larger petrol tank I used as the Trophy type, smaller tank, has become very hard to find. Also, Bud used a rigid type battery carrier with a dummy battery to save weight. In addition I fitted a mainstand so the thing would stand up !

thanks to :

Cotswold Classics. www.cotswold-classics.co.uk
Ace Classics London. www.aceclassics.co.uk
Mark Myers [Rider]. www.stevemcqueenlookalike.com

Steve McQueen in THE GREAT ESCAPE......Hero, Idol, Legend.

BUD EKINS: Steve McQueen asked me if I wanted to come to Germany and be his stunt double on The Great Escape. I said 'sure' and never thought anything of it. I just thought 'that'll pass!'
I enjoyed the whole thing: living in Munich. I bought a car over there, a secondhand Mercedes. It was great because the film crew would say: "You're not needed at work for the next five days." So I'd drive over to Venice or some place.

There were three other stuntmen on the set and I learnt from them. This jump was shot on a Monday. On Sunday, Steve, myself, an Australian motocross racer and Tim Gibbs, an excellent rider, all went out to where they were going to shoot it and the effects man put a piece of string across at all these different heights. The bike was a '62 Triumph. It was completely stock.

The first time, I'd take a run at it and jump maybe two feet off the ground. Then we would take a shovel and dig this natural ramp, changing the angles on it. And I'd jump four, six, eight feet and then when we reached 10 feet we said that's it! Nobody else from the crew knew we were up there.

So when it comes to Monday none of us said we'd already done it. When I went ahead and did it, we did it in one take. It seemed I was up in air forever - 10 or 12 feet high and 65 feet distance jumped. When I was in the air it was dead silent.

I taught Steve McQueen to race motorcycles. He had a motorcycle and rode it on the street and then he got interested in what I was doing, so I took him out to the desert and built him up a race bike and he took it up. He was a very, very good rider. He was very quick, athletic and competitive. Out of three or four hundred riders he would also come in one of the first 10 places. When he was working he would sometimes sneak out to race but he wasn't supposed to: he broke his foot one time and he told them he slipped in oil on the back of his pick-up truck. He had a cast on his leg so that limited the director on what he could do.

Steve was very businesslike on the set, very serious about his work. We'd go to each other's houses all the time though. Then he got interested in my passion - antique motorcycles; I had 130 of them and he didn't have any. It took me 30 years to get what I had. And all of a sudden he had 112.

Steve McQueen in THE GREAT ESCAPE......Hero, Idol, Legend.

Certainly they can't be suggesting that Steve McQueen, an actor, was a hero? Idol, probably to many. Legend?