USA: Steve McQueen's passionate relationship with fast cars and motorcycles is revisited by a museum exhibit in Los Angeles

Hollywood legend Steve McQueen is being remembered by car enthusiasts in Los Angeles. Curators at the Petersen Automotive museum have assembled an exhibit entitled "Steve McQueen: The Legend and the Cars" that features clips from his most famous films as well as some very special automobiles. McQueen made history in the 1960s and 1970s with a series of films in which he played hard-driving, take-no-prisoners tough guys. An avid motorist and mechanic himself, the actor sought out roles that would put him into the driver's seat, such as "Bullitt," "The Great Escape" and "Le Mans." For museum director Dick Messer, fast cars and moviemaking are a match made in Hollywood heaven. "Automobiles, because they are mobile, and they can be spectacular and different... they lend themselves to movies," he told Reuters. "So Steve McQueen took it to a different level, or his movies did, with movies like Bullitt." One of the centerpieces in the exhibit is a clone of the 1969 Ford Mustang used in the famous chase scene in "Bullitt". Unlike some of Hollywood's famous luxury cars, this model is truly accessible to the enthusiast community. "It's a fairly available car, it's a fastback Mustang 1969, 390 cubic inch engine, it had American Racing wheels on it, so it's not a hard car to duplicate -- four-speed gearbox," he explained. "So it's just the idea: this car was jumping the streets of San Francisco. It's a car that people can relate to, kind of like people relate to NASCAR today in racing, they can relate to this car in the movies." Besides the hot rods, curators have assembled a variety of motorcycles including the actual 1961 Triumph used in "The Great Escape." "He was a real car guy, and all through his life cars were very important to him," added Messer. "He collected them, he drove them, and then he had the motorcycles. He was a very very good motorcycle rider, in fact so good that he was on the international six-day trial team." Several of the vehicles featured in the exhibit are currently in the hands of Chad McQueen, Steve's son, who said he's amazed that his dad's legacy has lived on. "It's amazing, you know, that the newer generation are being turned onto his stuff," he said. "If you get young kids that come up and see this and they go, who is this McQueen guy, and they go rent Bullitt or they go rent ... you know, it turns them onto his work and they see what a fine actor he was, that's really neat. That's really cool." "Steve McQueen: The Legend and the Cars" will be on display through April 2006.

ITN Source | September 29, 2005

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