Steve McQueen Great Escape inspired Triumph by Ace Classics

Hi there, I'm Kev from Race Classics. This is my shop. We're based in London and we specialise in classic triumphs. Today I'm going to be talking to you about three Steve McQueen replica bikes we built for customers. One being a Desert Racer, one being a Great Escape bike and another being a ISD2 bike. Steve McQueen, as I'm sure you know, is a famous Hollywood actor but in his spare time he loved riding motorcycles. You might have seen the film on any Sunday with him blasting across the deserts. In 1963 there was a film Great Escape. Steve McQueen was asked to perform in the film, act in the film and his bike of choice was a Triumph and the particular Triumph he rode was a 1961 TR6 SS. We have built a replica of the bike used in the film. This is it here. To get this finished product we've looked at pictures, we've gone through the film, paused the film, looked back at the film, looked at more pictures. What we wanted to do with this bike, we didn't want it to look bright and shiny like all our restorations we normally do so we like to give it a tired look like it had been used in the film. So what we've done, we had the frame, we had everything painted and then we aged the paint by putting carburettor cleaner on it, believe it or not. All the handlebars, everything that was normally chrome or something would have been painted. For instance the handlebars were painted green so the chrome didn't glimmer on the film. Because they were an army bike they didn't want to be seen so where Steve McQueen's hand would have been we've rubbed away chrome where the paint would have worn off. Little bits like that, all the nuts and bolts we've painted so it didn't shine out. I mean this bike's quite a special bike. It's probably one of the most famous bikes ever used in film. Things like dents and stuff in the and the silences we've done. This bike was fitted with a rubber dumb lock sprung saddle but that proved uncomfortable in the film so what they've done was put a foam sort of cover on and then a canvas cover over the top so we replicated that. The bike in the film also had a rack which wasn't standard to the standard 61 Triumph. Obviously it was painted green as I said. They painted the headlight and had a small glimmer of light coming through. The front number plate is all hand painted and lined properly as it would have been done. We used a half width front hub which was from a lot earlier bike to make the bike look older. Bud Eakins would have built these bikes for Steve McQueen. Apparently there's two or three used in the film but we don't know for sure. Any dents that we've seen in the in the picture of the original bike like in the exhaust down here we put the dents in the exhaust just to try and give it that period authentic kind of look like the bike could have been out of the film. Because the bike was used for a jump in the film they geared the bike so it would accelerate really really hard and put this great big sprocket over which is called a bolt over so the standard sprocket would have been a 46 tooth and they geared the bike up by 10 teeth by putting this bolt over sprocket on to give the bike a lot more acceleration than it needed for the jump. That's probably all I need to show you on that bike. This second bike here is another bike that Steve McQueen would have ridden. It's a 1963 Bonneville built by his friend again Bud Eakins. Quite a lot of changes on this bike so this bike would have been your standard kind of road bike with lights and things like that but Bud Eakins converted this for the desert racing so they took all the lights off put an alley number board on this 502 is all hand painted on as well as the triumph on the sides hand painted and we've rubbed the lettering out to make it look old. What's quite a trick sort of idea on these bikes they run the throttle cable over the top of the tank put on alley straps so if you had to take a throttle cable off in the desert it was ever so easy you didn't have to take the tank off. They fitted a Bates desert seat to these bikes high exhaust pipes for ground clearance obviously being a desert racer you want to avoid any boulders or rocks so high pipes as well as being a desert racer a lot of desert racers had bash shields on them so when going through rough terrain the bikes could cope with anything coming at them and that would protect all the crank cases. Again like the Great Escape bike we talked about earlier this bike has got a half width hub because that was something Bud Eakins done he preferred that front brake made it lighter and it was quite a good brake alley mudguards back on front ah to cope with the desert again this had a double kind of air foot which was standard for a but Bud Eakins put a great big paper element filter this side of the bike to cope with all the sand and everything that would throw at them another thing they'd done was put these protectors here so if you was to bend the footrest you didn't want it going into a chain case so these protectors would protect the chain case from any damage that was both sides of the bike. The last bike I've got to show you today is a 1964 TR6 ISDT bike so in 1964 Steve McQueen and Bud Eakins and Dave Eakins went to Germany and done the ISDT trial that was a six-day trial where they went across East Germany and this bike was picked up at the Triumph factory and modified at a shop called Commerfords in London by Steve McQueen and some of the other team. This bike is a replica obviously but things they would have done on this bike so being ISDT they had to be able to get the wheel out quick so you had quickly adjustable wheel adjusters there was a pump uh to if you had a flat tire you could pump your tire so that that lead went through under the seat and there's your pump to be able to pump the tire up for extra grip on the footrest they had these studded type footrests which um which we had made also again quickly detachable sort of studs rather than bolts down at the bottom of the fault caps there the famous number board number 278 was fitted that was Steve McQueen's number in the ISDT the front number plate would normally be mounted here on an old classic Triumph but um for clearance of the headlight uh number board I suppose the number plate was moved up underneath the headlight small competition headlight which one nice thing they'd done on these bikes was they uh fitted mole grips pipe grips spare levers things like that throughout the bike so they was tied on um there was a pencil used in the actual throttle so if your hand was getting tired you'd use your throttle and your thumb to use as a pen like to grab the handlebar rubber oh in the back of the bike here there was a zip um where all Steve McQueen's or whoever's bike it was tools would have been stored this particular bike we had put the foam in the cover so they used to rip the foam out and then put the tools in there so that's another sort of thing that we've done had a special exhaust system so normally these bikes we've had a normal uh one up each side exhaust system but this exhaust system was a Siamese it come up and kicked up in the air for a bit more ground clearance this we built six of these bikes this particular bike the customer asked us not to but originally there would have been a big dent in the exhaust pipe here and that was because when they made this special one-off exhaust system for this bike when they realized they kicked it over the the end of a kickstart would smash on there but this particular customer asked us not to do that so um on the tank is a map of the actual trial they would have done so that's quite interesting even down to things like the tax disc that we put on the right registration number um and things like that so to make the bike real period to what it would have been in 1964 when McQueen rode it maybe I'll start this one up first the great escape bike good idea all the all triumphs have an iconic sound especially the classic bikes so here goes on this one so that's the sound of the great escape bike quite nice but this desert racer from 1963 is a lot lot louder so let me start this one up for you so you can sort of hear what this one would have sounded like blasting across the deserts in 1963 with McQueen so you've heard the great escape bike run you've heard the desert racing run I'm really sorry but today we can't start this one because I've not got any petrol in this one uh it's just been in for a service and the tank's been repainted we've not yet put any petrol in it but if you want you're more than welcome to come to our shop we're based in London we're Ace Classics you can follow us on Instagram at Ace Classics or Facebook we have a website so more than welcome to come in for a cup of tea maybe I can show you around some of our bikes might even be able to show you this one starting up if it's still here what I thought I'd do is show you around some of some of the shops some of the bikes we've got in the shop and the workshop so if you follow me I'll show you around so this is where the general servicing is done we've got one bench general servicing we've got a young lad of 20 working on the bikes very good lad very enthusiastic about the bikes and he's just doing a bit of a bit of work on this one at the moment that's a 59 trophy but in the workshop this is where we build all the Steve McQueen bikes a very small workshop but we were able to work with a small space so on the workbench here right now is a 1954 Tiger 100 that we're restoring for a customer that looked really nice when finished so that would be a bright and shiny bike unlike your Steve McQueen bikes you've seen all dull and sort of ready for the desert this will be a show winning condition kind of bike but in the front of the shop we've got lots more of our own personal collection which I can sort of talk you through let's just turn the turn the lights on in here so for instance I mean this one's not ours but that's come in for an engine rebuild it's a customer's bike wants it running better wants a gearbox working so that's that's a bike we're working on all the bikes up the side here sort of our own display so this particular bike here 608 BWD the registration was the actual bike in the motorcycle in 1961 the motorcycle magazine that's the actual bike so that's that's a nice bike we're quite proud to sort of own and have that here in our shop some rare bikes up on the other side here so this is a production racer 1960 Bonneville they had things like a one gallon oil tank and and the big GP carbs things like that this this bike's a TR5R very rare bike only ever sent to America this bike here is a 1957 Tiger 100 RS if you're watching this in America and you know about old triumphs you probably know what that bike is they was only ever sent to America they had lightweight alley guards open megaphone silencers well not silencers they made lots of noise probably even louder than the Steve McQueen bike we started up earlier that was a pure race bike sent to America there was something like only 50 of them ever built and that's one of the real ones so that's a real rare bike throughout the shop we have lots of rigid sort of Tiger 100s that's a Tiger 100C we have a couple of 1950 Thunderbirds there a 63 Bonnie this bike may interest you because that bike is the desert racer we built a 63 desert racer that's how that bike would have started out its life and then it was transformed desert racer an original paint survivor bike from 1966 a TR6 a 67 TT that's actually going up for sale soon it's one of our customers we've built yeah so I mean that's our shop we like I say come down for a cup of tea come and find us we're in London like I said follow us on Instagram Facebook all that sort of stuff