Steve McQueen

Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of 1960s counterculture, made him a top box office draw for his films of the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. He was nicknamed the "King of Cool" and used the alias "Harvey Mushman" when participating in motor races.

McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in '' The Sand Pebbles'' (1966). His other popular films include ''The Cincinnati Kid'' (1965), '' Nevada Smith'' (1966), '' The Thomas Crown Affair'' (1968), ''Bullitt'' (1968), '' The Getaway'' (1972) and '' Papillon'' (1973), in addition to ensemble films such as ''The Magnificent Seven'' (1960), '' The Great Escape'' (1963), and ''The Towering Inferno'' (1974). He became the world's highest-paid movie star in 1974; however, afterwards he did not appear in a film for another four years. Although he was combative with directors and producers, his popularity placed him in high demand and enabled him to negotiate the largest salaries.

Diagnosed with terminal cancer, McQueen flew to Mexico in October 1980 for surgery to remove or reduce tumors in his neck and abdomen, against the advice of U. S. doctors who warned him that his cancer was inoperable and that his heart could not withstand the surgery. A few weeks later, he died at age 50 of a heart attack after having the surgery at a hospital in Ciudad Juárez, where he checked in under a fake name and was operated on by hospital staff who were unaware of his true identity.

Early life

Terrence Stephen McQueen was born at St. Francis Hospital in Beech Grove, Indiana, on March 24, 1930, the son of Julia Ann (or Julianne) Crawford and flying circus stunt pilot William McQueen. He was of Scottish descent and grew up in a Catholic household. He was raised by his mother, who was abandoned by his father six months after they met. Several biographers have stated that his mother was an alcoholic. Unable to cope with caring for him, she decided in 1933 to leave him with her parents Lillian and Victor in Slater, Missouri. As the Great Depression worsened, McQueen and his grandparents moved in with Lillian's brother Claude and his family at their farm in Slater. McQueen later said that he had good memories of living on the farm, noting that his great-uncle Claude was a "very good, very strong, ndvery fair" man from whom he "learned a lot".

Claude gave McQueen a red tricycle on his fourth birthday, which McQueen subsequently credited with sparking his early interest in car racing. His mother, who had since married, brought McQueen from the farm to live with her and his stepfather in Indianapolis when he was eight years old. He later recalled, "The day I left the farm, Uncle Claude gave me a personal going-away present—a gold pocket watch, with an inscription inside the case." The inscription read: "To Steve, who has been a son to me." Dyslexic and partially deaf due to a childhood ear infection, McQueen did not adjust well to school or his new life, and his stepfather beat him to such an extent that he left home to live on the streets at the age of nine. He later said, "When a kid doesn't have any love when he's small, he begins to wonder if he's good enough. My mother didn't love me, and I didn't have a father. I thought, 'Well, I must not be very good.

Julia wrote to Claude when McQueen was 12, asking that he be returned to her again to live in Los Angeles, where she now lived with her second husband. By McQueen's own account, he and his new stepfather "locked horns immediately". McQueen recalls him being "a prime son of a bitch" who was not averse to beating both McQueen and Julia. McQueen began to rebel again and was sent back to live with Claude for a final time. At age 14, he left Claude's farm without saying goodbye and joined a circus for a short time. He drifted back to his mother and stepfather in Los Angeles, resuming his life as a gang member and petty criminal. He was caught stealing hubcaps by the police and handed over to his stepfather, who beat him severely and threw him down a flight of stairs. McQueen looked up at his stepfather and said, "You lay your stinking hands on me again and I swear I'll kill you."

After this incident, McQueen's stepfather persuaded his mother to sign a court order saying that McQueen was incorrigible, remanding him to the California Junior Boys Republic in Chino Hills. Steve began to change and mature there, but was not popular with the other boys at first: "Say the boys had a chance once a month to load into a bus and go into town to see a movie. And they lost out because one guy in the bungalow didn't get his work done right. Well, you can pretty well guess they're gonna have something to say about that. I paid my dues with the other fellows quite a few times. I got my lumps, no doubt about it. The other guys in the bungalow had ways of paying you back for interfering with their well-being."

McQueen gradually became a role model and was elected to the Boys Council, a group who set the rules and regulations governing the boys' lives. He left the Boys Republic at age 16. When he later became famous as an actor, he regularly returned to talk to resident boys and retained a lifelong association with the center. At age 16, he returned to live with his mother, who had since moved to New York City's Greenwich Village. He met two sailors from the Merchant Marine there and decided to sign on to a ship bound for the Dominican Republic. Once there, he abandoned his new post and was eventually employed at a brothel. He later ventured to Texas and drifted from job to job, including selling pens at a traveling carnival and working as a lumberjack in Canada. Upon his arrest for vagrancy in the Deep South, he served a 30-day assignment on a chain gang.

In 1947, after receiving permission from his mother since he was not yet 18 years old, McQueen enlisted in the U.S. Marines and was sent to Parris Island, South Carolina for boot camp. He was promoted to private first class and assigned to an armored unit. He initially struggled with conforming to the discipline of the service and was demoted to private seven times. He took an unauthorized absence, failing to return after a weekend pass expired, and was caught by the shore patrol while staying with his girlfriend Barbara Ross for two weeks. After resisting arrest, he was sentenced to 41 days in the brig. After this, he resolved to focus his energies on self-improvement and embraced the Marines' discipline. He saved the lives of five other Marines during an Arctic exercise, pulling them from a tank before it broke through ice into the sea. He was assigned to the honor guard responsible for guarding USS ''Williamsburg'', the presidential yacht of Harry S. Truman. He served until 1950, when he was honorably discharged. He later said he had enjoyed his time in the Marines, remembering it as a formative time in his life: "The Marines made a man out of me. I learned how to get along with others, and I had a platform to jump off of."

Acting

1950s

In 1952, with financial assistance under the G.I. Bill, McQueen began studying acting in New York at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse and at HB Studio under Uta Hagen. He reportedly delivered his first dialogue on a theater stage in a 1952 play produced by Yiddish theater star Molly Picon. McQueen's character spoke one brief line: "''Alts iz farloyrn.''" ("''All is lost.''") During this time, he also studied acting with Stella Adler, in whose class he met Gia Scala.

Long enamored of cars and motorcycles, McQueen began to earn money by competing in weekend motorcycle races at Long Island City Raceway. He purchased the first two of many motorcycles, a Harley-Davidson and a Triumph. He soon became an excellent racer, winning about $100 each weekend (). He appeared as a musical judge in an episode of ABC's '' Jukebox Jury'', which aired in the 1953–1954 season.

McQueen had minor roles in stage productions, including ''Peg o' My Heart'', ''The Member of the Wedding'' and ''Two Fingers of Pride''. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play ''A Hatful of Rain'' starring Ben Gazzara. In late 1955, McQueen left New York and headed for Los Angeles. He moved into a house on Vestal Avenue in the Echo Park area, and sought acting jobs in Hollywood.

When McQueen appeared in a two-part '' Westinghouse Studio One'' television presentation entitled " The Defender", Hollywood manager Hilly Elkins took note of him and decided that B movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. McQueen's first film role under Elkins' management was a bit part in '' Somebody Up There Likes Me'' (1956), directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. McQueen was subsequently hired for the films '' The Blob'' (his first leading role), '' Never Love a Stranger,'' and '' The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery'' (1959).

McQueen's first breakout role came on television. He appeared on Dale Robertson's NBC Western series ''Tales of Wells Fargo'' as Bill Longley. Elkins, then McQueen's manager, successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the Western series '' Trackdown,'' to have McQueen read for the part of bounty hunter Josh Randall. He first appeared in Season 1, Episode 21, of ''Trackdown'' in 1958. He appeared as Randall in that episode, cast opposite series lead Robert Culp, a former New York motorcycle racing buddy. McQueen appeared again on ''Trackdown'' in Episode 31 of the first season, in which he played twin brothers, one of whom was an outlaw sought by Culp's character, Hoby Gilman.

McQueen next filmed a pilot episode for what became the series, '' Wanted Dead or Alive'', which aired on CBS in September 1958. It became his breakout role. In interviews associated with the DVD release of ''Wanted: Dead or Alive'', Robert Culp of ''Trackdown'' claimed credit for bringing McQueen to Hollywood and landing him the part of Randall. He said he taught McQueen the "art of the fast-draw". Culp said that by the second day of filming, McQueen beat him at it.

McQueen became a household name as a result of the series. Randall's special holster held a sawed-off .44–40 Winchester rifle (nicknamed the " Mare's Leg") instead of the sixgun carried by the typical Western character, although the cartridges in the gunbelt were dummy .45-70, chosen because they "looked tougher." As noted in the three-part DVD special feature on the background of the series, the generally negative image of the bounty hunter added to the antihero image infused with mystery and detachment that made this show stand out from the typical TV Western. The 94 episodes which ran from 1958 until early 1961 kept McQueen steadily employed, and he became a fixture at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, where much of the outdoor action for ''Wanted: Dead or Alive'' was shot.

At age 29, McQueen got a significant break when Frank Sinatra removed Sammy Davis Jr. from the film '' Never So Few'' after Davis supposedly made some mildly negative remarks about Sinatra in a radio interview, and Davis's role went to McQueen. Sinatra saw something special in McQueen and ensured that the young actor got plenty of closeups in a role that earned McQueen favorable reviews. McQueen's character, Bill Ringa, was never more comfortable than when driving at high speed—in this case in a Jeep—or handling a switchblade or a tommy gun.

1960s

After ''Never So Few'', the film's director John Sturges cast McQueen in his next movie, promising to "give him the camera". ''The Magnificent Seven'' (1960), in which he played Vin Tanner and starred with Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz and James Coburn, became McQueen's first major hit and led to his withdrawal from ''Wanted: Dead or Alive''. McQueen's focused portrayal of the taciturn second lead catapulted his career. His added touches in many of the shots (such as twirling a shotgun around before loading it, repeatedly checking his gun while in the background of a shot, and wiping his hat rim) annoyed top-billed Brynner, who protested that McQueen was stealing scenes. (In his autobiography, Eli Wallach reports struggling to conceal his amusement while watching the filming of the funeral procession scene in which Brynner's and McQueen's characters first meet. Brynner was furious at McQueen's shotgun round-twirl, which effectively diverted the viewer's attention to McQueen. Brynner refused to draw his gun in the same scene with McQueen, knowing that his character would probably be outdrawn.)

McQueen played the top-billed lead role in the next big Sturges film, 1963's '' The Great Escape'', Hollywood's fictional depiction of the true story of a historic mass escape from a World War II POW camp, Stalag Luft III. Insurance concerns prevented McQueen from performing the film's notable motorcycle leap, which was done by his friend and fellow cycle enthusiast Bud Ekins, who resembled McQueen from a distance. When Johnny Carson later tried to congratulate McQueen for the jump during a broadcast of ''The Tonight Show'', McQueen said, "It wasn't me. That was Bud Ekins." This film established McQueen's box-office clout and secured his status as a superstar.

Also in 1963, McQueen starred in '' Love with the Proper Stranger'' with Natalie Wood. He later appeared as the titular '' Nevada Smith'', a character from Harold Robbins' novel '' The Carpetbaggers'', portrayed by Alan Ladd two years earlier in a movie version of that novel. ''Nevada Smith'' was an enormously successful Western action adventure prequel that also featured Karl Malden and Suzanne Pleshette. After starring in 1965's ''The Cincinnati Kid'' as a poker player, McQueen earned his only Academy Award nomination in 1966 for his role as an engine room sailor in '' The Sand Pebbles'', in which he starred opposite Richard Crenna and Candice Bergen and Richard Attenborough, with whom he had previously worked in ''The Great Escape''.

After being nominated for an Oscar, McQueen was in ''Bullitt'' (1968) – one of his best-known films and his personal favorite – which co-starred Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn, and Don Gordon. It featured an unprecedented (and endlessly imitated) car chase through San Francisco. Although McQueen did the driving that appeared in closeups, his was about 10% of what is seen in the film's car chase. The rest of the driving by McQueen's character was done by stunt drivers Bud Ekins and Loren Janes. McQueen's character drove a 1968 Ford Mustang GT 390, while the antagonist's black Dodge Charger was driven by veteran stunt driver Bill Hickman. McQueen, his stunt drivers and Hickman spent several days before the scene was shot practicing high-speed, close-quarters driving. ''Bullitt'' was so far over budget that Warner Bros. canceled the contract on the rest of his films, seven in all.

When ''Bullitt'' became a huge box-office success, Warner Bros. tried to woo him back, but he refused, and his next film was made with an independent studio and released by United Artists. For the film, McQueen went for a change of image, playing a debonair role as a wealthy executive in '' The Thomas Crown Affair'' with Faye Dunaway in 1968. In 1969, he made the Southern period piece, '' The Reivers''.

1970s

In 1971, McQueen starred in the auto-racing drama ''Le Mans'', which received mixed reviews, followed by '' Junior Bonner'' in 1972, a story about an aging rodeo rider. He collaborated once again with director Sam Peckinpah in '' The Getaway'', where he met his future wife Ali MacGraw. McQueen then took on a physically demanding role as a prisoner on Devil's Island in the 1973 film '' Papillon'', alongside Dustin Hoffman as his character's tragic companion. By the time of ''The Getaway'', McQueen was the world's highest-paid actor.

In 1974, with Paul Newman, McQueen co-led John Guillermin's disaster film, ''The Towering Inferno''. McQueen played a fire chief assigned to stop a fire in a skyscraper. He was originally asked to play the architect who is the other hero of the story, but he requested to play the fire chief, thinking the part was "showier". The role of the architect went to Newman, a part that had more lines, hence McQueen requested more dialogue to even it out. McQueen was paid $1,000,000 plus a percentage of the gross, and he insisted on doing his own stunts. The film was a success, and its North American gross was $55,000,000.

After that, McQueen disappeared from the public eye to focus on motorcycle racing, traveling around the country in a motor home and on his vintage Indian motorcycles. He did not return to acting until 1978 with ''An Enemy of the People'', playing against type as a bearded, bespectacled 19th-century doctor in this adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen play. The film was never properly released theatrically, but it has appeared occasionally on PBS.

McQueen's final two films, both released in 1980, were loosely based on true stories: ''Tom Horn'', a Western adventure about a former Army scout turned professional gunman who works for big cattle ranchers hunting down rustlers, and later hanged for murder in the shooting death of a sheepherder; and '' The Hunter'', an urban action movie about a modern-day bounty hunter.

Missed roles

McQueen was offered the lead male role in '' Breakfast at Tiffany's'', but was unable to accept due to his ''Wanted: Dead or Alive'' contract (the role went to George Peppard).Jones Meg. – "McQueen Biography Is Portrait of a Rebel". – ''Milwaukee Sentinel''. – March 19, 1994. He turned down parts in '' Ocean's 11'', ''Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' (his attorneys and agents could not agree with Paul Newman's attorneys and agents on top billing), ''The Driver'', ''Apocalypse Now'', '' California Split'', ''Dirty Harry'', '' A Bridge Too Far'', '' The French Connection'' (he did not want to do another cop film), ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' and ''Sorcerer''.

According to director John Frankenheimer and actor James Garner in bonus interviews for the DVD of the film '' Grand Prix'', McQueen was Frankenheimer's first choice for the lead role of American Formula One race car driver Pete Aron. Frankenheimer was unable to meet with McQueen to offer him the role, so he sent Edward Lewis, his business partner and the producer of ''Grand Prix''. McQueen and Lewis instantly clashed, the meeting was a disaster, and the role went to Garner. Later, in an interview, Garner said:

Director Steven Spielberg said McQueen was his first choice for the character of Roy Neary in ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind''. According to Spielberg in a documentary on the film's DVD release, Spielberg met him at a bar, where McQueen drank beer after beer. Before leaving, McQueen told Spielberg that he could not accept the role because he was unable to cry on cue. Spielberg offered to take the crying scene out of the story, but McQueen demurred, saying that it was the best scene in the script. The role eventually went to Richard Dreyfuss.

William Friedkin wanted to cast McQueen as the lead in the action thriller film ''Sorcerer'' (1977). ''Sorcerer'' was to be filmed primarily on location in the Dominican Republic, but McQueen did not want to be separated from Ali MacGraw for the duration of the shoot. McQueen then asked Friedkin to let MacGraw act as a producer, so she could be present during principal photography. Friedkin would not agree to this condition, and cast Roy Scheider instead of McQueen. Friedkin later remarked that not casting McQueen hurt the film's performance at the box-office.

Spy novelist Jeremy Duns revealed that McQueen was considered for the lead role in a film adaptation of '' The Diamond Smugglers'', written by James Bond creator Ian Fleming. McQueen would play John Blaize, a secret agent gone undercover to infiltrate a diamond-smuggling ring in South Africa. There were complications with the project, which was eventually shelved, although a 1964 screenplay does exist.

McQueen and Barbra Streisand were tentatively cast in '' The Gauntlet'' (1977), but the pair could not get along and both withdrew from the project—though according to one biographer, they had briefly dated in 1971. The lead roles were filled by Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke. McQueen expressed interest in the Rambo character in ''First Blood'' when David Morrell's novel appeared in 1972, but the producers rejected him because of his age.

He was offered the title role in '' The Bodyguard'' (to star Diana Ross) when it was proposed in 1976, but the film did not reach production until years after McQueen's death; the film eventually starred Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston in 1992. '' Quigley Down Under'' was in development as early as 1974, with McQueen in consideration for the lead, but by the time production began in 1980, McQueen was ill. The project was scrapped until a decade later, when Tom Selleck starred.

Stunts, motor racing and flying

McQueen was an avid motorcycle and race car enthusiast. When he had the opportunity to drive in a movie, he performed many of his own stunts, including some of the car chases in ''Bullitt'' and the motorcycle chase in '' The Great Escape''. Although the jump over the fence in ''The Great Escape'' was done by Bud Ekins for insurance purposes, McQueen did have considerable screen time riding his 650 cc Triumph TR6 Trophy motorcycle. It was difficult to find riders as skilled as McQueen. At one point, using editing, McQueen is seen in a German uniform chasing himself on another bike. Around half of the driving in ''Bullitt'' was performed by Loren Janes.

McQueen and John Sturges planned to make ''Day of the Champion'', a movie about Formula One racing, but McQueen was busy with the delayed ''The Sand Pebbles''.

McQueen considered being a professional race car driver. He had a one-off outing in the British Touring Car Championship in 1961, driving a BMC Mini at Brands Hatch, finishing third. 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 earlier) won with a Porsche 908/02 in the three-litre class and missed winning overall by 21.1 seconds to Mario Andretti/ Ignazio Giunti/ Nino Vaccarella in a five-litre Ferrari 512S. This 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 the film backers threatened to pull their support if he did. Faced with the choice of driving for 24 hours in the race or driving for the entire summer making the film, McQueen opted for the latter.Stone, Matthew L, (2007). – Excerpt
"Steve McQueen's Automotive Legacy
. – ''Mcqueen's Machines: The Cars And Bikes Of A Hollywood Icon''. – (c/o Mustang & Fords). – St. Paul, Minnesota: Motorbooks. –

McQueen competed in off-road motorcycle racing, frequently running a BSA Hornet and using alias Harvey Mushman. He was also set to co-drive in a Triumph 2500 PI for the British Leyland team in the 1970 London-Mexico rally, but had to turn it down due to movie commitments. His first off-road motorcycle was a Triumph 500 cc, purchased from Ekins. McQueen raced in many top off-road races on the West Coast, including the Baja 1000, the Mint 400, and the Elsinore Grand Prix.

In 1964, McQueen and Ekins were part of a four-rider (plus one reserve) first-ever official U.S. team-entry into the Silver Vase category of the International Six Days Trial (ISDT), an Enduro-type off-road motorcycling event held that year in Erfurt, East Germany. The "A" team arrived in England in late August to collect their mix of 649 cc and 490 cc twins from the Triumph factory before modifying them for off-road use. ''Motor Cycle'', August 27, 1964. p.451. ''On the Rough'' by Peter Fraser. "''All of them have been riding regularly in US Enduros and scrambles, but Bud is the only one with previous ISDT experience. He won golds last year and in 1962''". Accessed December 7, 2015 Initially let down with transport arrangements by a long-established English motorcycle dealer, Triumph dealer H&L Motors stepped-in to provide a suitable vehicle. ''Motor Cycle'', September 3, 1964. pp.492–494. ''ISDT Opening'' by Peter Fraser. Accessed December 7, 2015 On arrival in Germany, the team, with their English temporary manager, were surprised to find that a Vase "B" team, comprising expat Americans living in Europe, had entered themselves privately to ride European-sourced machinery. ''Motor Cycle'', September 10, 1964. pp.508–510. ''ISDT First report'' by Peter Fraser. Accessed December 7, 2015

McQueen's ISDT competition number was 278, which was based on the trials starting order. Both teams crashed repeatedly.''The Motor Cycle'', September 24, 1964. pp.578-580. ''ISDT Round up'' by Peter Fraser McQueen retired due to irreparable crash damage, and Ekins withdrew with a broken leg, both on day three. Only one member of the "B" team finished the six-day event. UK monthly magazine ''Motorcycle Sport'' commented: "Riding Triumph twins... he teamrode everywhere with great dash, if not in admirable style, falling off frequently and obviously out for six days' of sport without too many worries about who was going to win (they knew it would not be them)".''Motorcycle Sport'', November 1964, pp.411–418 "''Steve McQueen, last man on the course after a long stop to repair a broken chain, was speeding along to catch up when he collided with a motorcyclist; the Triumph was sadly mangled, the front fork doubled under the frame''".

McQueen was inducted in the Off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1978. In 1971, McQueen's Solar Productions funded the classic motorcycle documentary '' On Any Sunday,'' in which McQueen is featured, along with racing legends Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith. The same year, he also appeared on the cover of ''Sports Illustrated'' magazine riding a Husqvarna dirt bike. McQueen designed a motorsports bucket seat, for which a patent was issued in 1971.

In a segment filmed for ''The Ed Sullivan Show,'' McQueen drove Sullivan around a desert area in a dune buggy at high speed. Afterward, Sullivan said, "That was a 'helluva' ride!" According to testimony by McQueen's son, Chad, Steve owned around 100 classic motorcycles, as well as around 100 exotic and vintage cars, including:

* Porsche 917, Porsche 908, and Ferrari 512 race cars from the ''Le Mans'' film
* Porsche 911S (used in the opening sequence of the ''Le Mans'' film)
* 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso
* 1967 Ferrari 275GTB/4
* 1956 Jaguar XKSS (right-hand drive) (now on exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles)
* 1958 Porsche 356 Speedster 1600 Super (black exterior, interior and top) (McQueen drove the car in numerous SCCA racing events) (now in property of his son Chad)
* 1968 Ford GT40 (Gulf liveried) (used in the ''Le Mans'' film)
* 1953 Siata 208s (McQueen replaced the Siata badges with Ferrari badges and called it his "little Ferrari")
* 1967 Mini Cooper-S (McQueen had the car customized by Lee Brown with changes including a single foglight, a wood dash, a recessed antenna and a custom brown paint job)
* 1951 Chevrolet Styline De Lux Convertible (used in ''The Hunter'', McQueen bought the car in 1979 after filming ended)
* 1952 Chevrolet 3800 pickup camper conversion (McQueen used the truck for cross-country camping trips. It was the last car he rode in before his death)
* 1950 Hudson Commodore convertible
* 1952 Hudson Wasp 2-door sedan
* 1953 Hudson Hornet 4-door Sedan
* 1956 GMC Suburban
*1958 GMC Pickup Truck (reportedly one of McQueen's favorite cars, it is powered by a 336 Ci V8 which has been modified. The tag "MQ3188" is a reference to the ID number assigned to him when he was in reform school)
* 1931 Lincoln-Zephyr Sedan
* 1963 Lincoln Continental Sedan
* 1935 Chrysler Airflow Imperial Sedan
* 1969 Chevrolet Baja Hickey race truck (originally debuted at the 1968 Mexican 1000 Rally and was driven by Cliff Coleman, Johnny Diaz, and Mickey Thompson and others during its racing career; said to be the first truck specifically constructed by General Motors for use in the Mexican 1000; McQueen bought it from General Motors in 1970)

In spite of numerous attempts, McQueen was never able to purchase the Ford Mustang GT 390 he drove in ''Bullitt'', which featured a modified drivetrain that suited McQueen's driving style. One of the two Mustangs used in the film was badly damaged, judged beyond repair, and believed to have been scrapped until it surfaced in Mexico in 2017, while the other one, which McQueen attempted to purchase in 1977, is hidden from the public eye. At the 2018 North American International Auto Show the GT 390 was displayed, in its current non-restored condition, with the 2019 Ford Mustang "Bullitt".

McQueen also flew and owned, among other aircraft, a 1945 Stearman, tail number N3188, (his student number in reform school), a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub, and an award-winning 1931 Pitcairn PA-8 biplane, flown in the U.S. Mail Service by famed World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker

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