Steve McQueen was an avid motorcycle and racecar enthusiast. When he had the opportunity to drive in a movie, he often did so himself, performing many of his own stunts.
Perhaps the most memorable were the classic chase in Bullitt and the motorcycle chase scene in The Great Escape.
Although the jump over the fence in The Great Escape was actually done by Bud Ekins for insurance purposes, McQueen did have a considerable amount of screen time riding his motorcycle.
According to the commentary track on The Great Escape , it was difficult to find riders as skilled as McQueen and at one point in the film, due to clever editing, McQueen is seen in a German uniform chasing himself on another bike.
Together with John Sturges, McQueen planned to make Day of the Champion, a movie about Formula One racing. He was busy with the delayed The Sand Pebbles, though.
They had a contract with the German Nürburgring, and after John Frankenheimer shot scenes there for Grand Prix, the reels had to be turned over to Sturges.
Frankenheimer was ahead in schedule anyway, and the McQueen/Sturges project was called off.
During his acting career, Steve McQueen considered becoming a professional race car driver.
In the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring race, Peter Revson and McQueen (driving with a cast on his left foot from a motorcycle accident two weeks before) won with a Porsche 908/02 in the 3 litre class and missed winning overall by a scant 23 seconds to Mario Andretti/Ignazio Giunti/Nino Vaccarella in a 5 litre Ferrari 512S.
The same Porsche 908 was entered by his production company Solar Productions as a camera car for Le Mans in the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans later that year. McQueen wanted to drive a Porsche 917 with Jackie Stewart in that race, but his film backers threatened to pull their support if he drove.
Faced with the choice of driving for 24 hours in the race or driving the entire summer making the film, McQueen opted to do the latter.
However, the film was a box office flop that almost ruined McQueen's career. In addition, McQueen himself admitted that he almost died while filming the movie.
Nonetheless, today, Le Mans is considered to be the most historically realistic, accurate, and dramatic representation of one of the most famous periods in the history of the race, as well as being considered one of the greatest auto racing movies of all time.
Steve McQueen also competed in off-road motorcycle racing. His first off-road motorcycle was a Triumph 500cc that he purchased from friend and stunt man Bud Ekins.
Steve McQueen raced in many of the top off-road races on the West Coast during the '60s and early 1970s, including the Baja 1000, the Mint 400 and the Elsinore Grand Prix.
In 1964, he represented the United States in the International Six Days Trial, a form of off-road motorcycling Olympics. He was inducted in the Off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1978.
In 1971, Solar Productions funded the now-classic motorcycle documentary On Any Sunday, in which McQueen himself is featured, along with racing legends Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith.
Also in 1971, Steve McQueen was on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine riding a Husqvarna dirt bike.
Steve McQueen was interested in collecting classic motorcycles. By the time of his death, his collection included over 100 motorcycles and was valued in the millions of dollars.
He owned several exotic sports cars, including:
* Porsche 917, Porsche 908 and Ferrari 512 race cars from the Le Mans film.
* 1963 Ferrari 250 Lusso Berlinetta
* Jaguar D-Type XKSS (Right-Hand Drive)
* Porsche 356 Speedster
60/70