Steve McQueen’s widow is giving up a bunch of memorabilia belonging to her long-late husband – the coolest dude in the universe – and it’s going up for auction.
Here are some of the items being sold. (click through – it’s a slideshow). Pardon me as I drool. It’s that era of stuff that I so love … the chrome, the rounded edges of things, the deco, the SOLIDITY of the objects. Those aviator goggles make my heart beat faster.
And this:
Ouch.
Want. Need. Want. Need. Want. Want.
Well, that’s weird. In the article you linked they specifically said that the bike from The Great Escape wasn’t up for sale. Yet, a couple of weeks ago in the Weekend FT, Bonham’s ran a half-page ad for this sale and the bike was prominently advertised as being up for sale.
Odd. I suppose I could have it wrong, but I don’t think I do. I wonder why it was pulled.
That said, I’m with you, Sheila: I BADLY WANT! ;)
Kathy – I’m kinda confused by that too.
I had heard it was being sold as well – although I might have heard wrong.
I suppose it’s possible that there might have been a lot of pre-sale interest in it and his widow decided that, as such, it would rate it’s own sale(there being any number of super rich bike collectors out there, Jay Leno being only one of them), but it seems weird that they’d be quiet about it. After all, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. But that works on the presumption that there would be a public sale of the bike—maybe she already received an offer that would go well and beyond anything they’d get at auction and that was the reason it was pulled. Again, providing it was on the block in the first place.
Very, very curious. ;)
She has to have been approached about that bike for years. People have probably been DYING to get their hands on it.
No doubt. That bike is quite an interesting bit of fakery. If I had the money, I’d buy it, just because McQueen always (always,always,always) makes me believe he’s going to make it over that damn fence. I’ve seen that movie, oh, about twenty times and every single bloody time I think “Oh, he’s going to make it this time!” I know he doesn’t, yet I hope for it every time. I can’t help myself. A prop that brings about that much of a suspension of disbelief needs to be cherished appropriately.
Whomever winds up with it, I sincerely hope that they’re not some wanker with more money than sense, but is a true aficionado who will appreciate it.
Sheila, I’m completely into that GMC truck, and there’s some other cool collector-owned stuff going up as well, like that black Rolls he drives in The Thomas Crown Affair. Oh, to have the cash to buy one of the rides and those awesome foldup Persol sunglasses of his…
You can’t see it in the photo you have there, but in my post that I linked to above, you can see the actual lot description for the truck. The vanity plate it sports — MQ3188 — is a reference to McQ’s ID number from when he was sent to reform school as a kid.
Utterly. Bitchin.
Alex – wow, thanks for the link – really informative!! I should have known you’d post on it!!
It’s just … the color, the shape, the classic rounded lines …
BAH. I WANT IT.
i feel like Cookie Monster.
Me want truck. Me want.
This is one of those auctions where you want to win the lottery right beforehand, that way you can overpay and just hoard it all for yourself.
Maybe I’ll watch Bullitt or Le Mans (the movie wherein McQueen says more with looks and glances than words could ever say) tonight…
And buy a Lotto ticket.
Alex – so who will be vying for this?
Car enthusiasts? Or – film museums? Car museums? The Smithsonian? Who do you think REALLY wants that truck? And has the cash to get it? Some rich dude who always idolized Steve McQueen?
I’ll be interested to see who gets it.
Very tough call. It could be any of the above. I’m going to go with either a collector or a car museum, like Volo, as it has a cool Hollywood cars collection, including the “Spy Wagon” used by one Dean Martin (commotion as Sheila begins planning pilgrimage) in The Silencers.
Jeebus, one of his original Belstaff jackets. ME WANT.
As to the truck, I’d be amazed if Leno doesn’t pick it up, along with many of the bikes.
Mr. Lion, the thing that makes me think Leno won’t necessarily be as active as you think is that he’s on record as saying he avoids celebrity cars. That said, he does own Dean Martin’s Lamborghini Miura, but that was basically given to him as a non-runner at the time.
That truck is nine shades of awesome. Holy crap.