Mcqueen's Machines: The Cars and Bikes of a Hollywood Icon

Steve McQueen is one of the iconic legends of Screen - even 25 years after his death he is still a giant! He had a life-long love of fast vehicles, building his first hot rod before could legally drive, and in the army hopped up a tank's engines to make it go faster! He was a member of the American Motorcycle Team, touring the world before going onto an impressive life of racing: nearly winning the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1970, driving a Porsche 908; racing buggies in Baja, the Porsche 917 at Le Mans; rode motocross across the California desert, and entered races under the pseudonym "Henry Mushman" to avoid favoritism, and bringing his racing skills to bear in "Bullitt", "Le Mans", "The Thomas Crowne Affair", "The Great Escape", where he did all the driving, riding and stunt work! Von Dutch, Tom Nancy, motorcycle champion Malcolm Smith, stunt driver Bud Elkins were in his inner circle, along with other racing stars - James Dean, Paul Newman, James Garner, although none came close to this the greatest petrolhead star of all time who had so much influence he could tell a studio to produce a film of his favorite race - Le Mans. This is not a Hollywood biography, it is a book full of what McQueen knew and loved: fast cars, fast bikes, racing, and off-roading, and will appeal to his legion of admirers and racing fans everywhere!

From the Ford Mustang GT Fastback he drove in Bullit, to the Triumph in The Great Escape, the cars and bikes that Steve McQueen made famous are all in Matt Stone's latest work. Beautifully illustrated with images of the great man himself and his cars, bikes, aircraft, etc, this 176-page hardback paints a fascinating picture of one man's oversized passion --Motorcycle Sports & Leisure--;On film and in real life, Steve Mcqueen was often at the wheel of a high-performance machine. This book carefully catalouges the cars, racers and motorbikes he owned and was associated with, such as the Porsche 917, Jaguar XK-SS and Mini Cooper. it is beautifully illustrated -wi th many rare period photogrpahs - and well written. --Auto Express--;The Cooler King of 'The Great Escape', Steve McQueen has carved out a name for himslef in the memories of many generations of movie goers and petrol heads, but he was tinkering with engines long before he started treading the baords, and some sense of that comes from the tale that he first met James Dean when spannering his bike in New York. Fame didn't change the fundamental bloke that anecdotally McQueen remained, and if anything his love of the internal combustion engine wheedled its way into the film roles he found himself in, rather than allowing his status as a Hollywood A-list star dictate what sort of car he was expected to be driving. The cars were typically speciality sportsters that were expertly driven as they were origionally intended, and modified to produce more power by the man himself, and this book tells the story of one man's wheels. The McQueen collection of bikes and cars is frequently in the limelight as chunks of it get sold of periodically , but it gives little away regarding his passion for Indians - born of a 1946 Chief with a sidecar that he bought after three years in the US Marines tank corps - or Triumphs, that he was introduced to ( as well as desert racing) by local Triumph dealer and later friend Bud Elkins, the man who made the jump in The Great Escape, never mind his engineering and sporting prowess. It was with Dub and Dave Elkins and Cliff Coleman that McQueen formed the 1964 American ISDT Team, the year after 'Escape': strike one for the Americans! On Triumphs...oh. Without giving the game away, McQueen's Machines is loaded with facts and observations, as well as some first hand experiences of McQueen's early cars, which are now worth fortunes, giving an insight not specifically into the man himself - there are plenty of autobiographies out there already - but into the way that his cars and bkes impacted on him, and he on them, and will make a welcome adittion to any self-respecting petrol-head's library. --American-V Magazine --Steve McQueen was the kind of guy who could say stuff and get away with it. Stuff like, 'this Mercedes is an outstanding lady's (sic) car, but it will also take some manhandling'. Basically, he's cool in an ever-so-slightly naff, 1970s sort of way. For reasons that are probably related - the environment, feminism etc - the very fast, mildly unsafe, deep throated rattling cars and motor-bikes he loved all through his life are also cool but quite non-PC. What better subject for a book than McQueen and his petrol-guzzling motors then? On a serious note, McQueen's association with cars and bikes is well known. Basically, this is his story told from every possible car or motorbike angle you can think of. That includes iconic moments like McQueen's character's motorbike jump over a wire fence in 'The Great Escape' and the legendary sequence from 1962's 'Bullitt' - the granddaddy of the modern car chase (and also the ancestor of the aesthetics and feel of the 'Grand Theft Auto' series). --minusforty blogspot dot com

SAY 'STEVE MCQUEEN' AND WHAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF? To many people it would be the unforgettable image of the actor on a motorcycle in a scene from The Great Escape. Dozens of books have been written about Steve McQueen's life and career. But none, says his son Chad, has focussed on the cars and bikes the star owned the ones he worked into his films and racing. Until now. Chad writes in his Foreword to Matt Stone's new book, McQueen's Machines: The Cars and Bikes of a Hollywood Icon: 'Cars and bikes were woven not only into our family, but into Dad's movies.' And, he says, he was delighted when Matt Stone approached him with the idea for a book as he recognised that this major part of the star's story needed to be told. Chad recalls visiting the set of the film Le Mans, when he was a child. Along with the Ferrari 512s, Porsche 917s, Lola T70s and Porsche 911s was 'a strange blue racer called a Matra.'Steve McQueen loved cars and he was passionate about racing. He was once quoted as saying: 'I'm not sure whether I'm an actor who races or a racer who acts.' The book takes a look at that going behind the scenes to take a look into McQueen's film roles and how the car chases were filmed. The cars and motorbikes that featured in his films were not just any vehicles. In Bullitt it was a Mustang McQueen took an unscheduled wrong turn and corrected it in such a dramatic way that the shot stayed in the famous sequence; in The Thomas Crown Affair it was a Ferrari NART Spyder and a fully set up Corvair-powered dune buggy. Chad now has some bikes and two of the cars from his father's large collection a 1969 911S and a 1958 Porsche Speedster. The Speed-ster was bought from new and Steve used it when he first went racing.Steve McQueen was, along with James Dean who died at a tragic-ally-young age Paul Newman and James Garner, among the first actors who loved cars and racing before it was fashionable to do so. McQueen's Machines: The Cars and Bikes of a Hollywood Icon is full of stories about the man and the cars. A Siata 208S that had formerly belonged to the star was bought by Dr Bruce Shand. While driving it in Hollywood, another car pulled up alongside him and he recognised McQueen whom he had met once before while picking up some mis-sing parts for the Siata. Shand pulled over and let McQueen treat him to the drive of his life! In the early days, McQueen had helped an older friend to assemble a hot rod. The star had a fascination with all things mechanical and he went on to buy more and more cars. The smallest car he owned was a 1967 Mini Cooper S repainted and with trick touches added. But he was often seen racing through the Hollywood Hills at night in his rare Jaguar XK-SS. Motorcycles were also important to him and Steve raced them under the pseudonym 'Henry Mushman'. Steve McQueen raced at Sebring, Phoenix and Elsinore. When he was the guest car-tester for Sports Illustrated magazine (8 August 1966 issue), he carried out his task at the legendary Riverside International Raceway about an hour east of Los Angeles. It was there that McQueen had raced in his Porsche Speedster and where he'd also tes-ted a Chevy V8-powered Lola T70 sports racer, so he'd had some understanding of the track. Steve McQueen also owned as many as 120 bikes at one time. They were stored in a large hangar beside his Boeing Stearman bi-plane. His dirt riding experience casually mentioned by his character Hilts, in the film The Great Escape, began on a bike borrowed from a neighbour. He then started racing in Southern California, on specially-modified Triumphs. Despite this, we learn from the book that it was actually his stunt double Bud Ekins who carried out the most famous fence-jumping sequence in The Great Escape. For the many McQueen fans, this is an essential purchase --motorbar dot com, June, 2008

Playboy, December 2007:Think of this book as a love story. It was good to be king;Men s Journal, January 2007: Though both a ladies man and a man s man, Steve McQueen was first and foremost a gearhead. He performed many of his own driving stunts. He raced across American deserts and European road courses on two wheels and four. He had the balls to pilot the terrifying Porsche 917 flat out down the Mulsanne straight and ride a Triumph through Paris traffic. McQueen s Machines is the first complete look inside the man s garage and, as a result, one of the few peeks inside his head; AutoWeek, Oct. 29, 2007; Well-written, entertaining book ... all of the pertinent details are here; Motortrend.com, Nov. 26, 2007: A must have for any Steve McQueen fan; Born To Ride, October 2007: This compilation is a wealth of detail about the star s amateur racing career, his movie stunt work, and his car and motorcycle collecting. All of this information draws a fascinating picture of one outsized man s driving passion; Musclecar Enthusiast, January 2008: It includes many never before published photos, including those from McQueen family albums ... a special treat for fans is a foreword by McQueen s son, Chad; Antique Automobile, November/December 2007: Draws a fascinating picture of one outsized man s driving passion; Robb Report Collection, December 2007: This 176-page book reads like a magazine and is filled with never-before-seen photographs; Classic & Sports Car (UK), December 2007: Book of the Month: If you only have one book on the King of Cool in your library, this should be it; The Columbus Dispatch, Nov. 11, 2007: McQueen was hard wired for cars and racing, with his love for all things mechanical and innate competitive nature that comes through in the book; Edmunds.com, Dec. 23, 2007 Author Matt Stone skips all the Hollywood c*** and gets right to the cars and motorcycles McQueen collected or made famous; Cycle World, January 2008 Thumbs up to Steve McQueen for continuing to be the King of Cool, no matter that he puffed his last Marlboro 28 years ago. Hot on the heels of his 1963 Ferrari GT 250 Berlinetta selling for a record $2.3 million at auction comes a new book, McQueen s Machines by auto writer Matt Stone. Nicely done, including a chapter on McQueen s motorcycles. --Cycle World, Janaury, 2008