Anything ‘Steve McQueen’ is highly collectable. At its May 14 Californian sale, Bonhams will offer one of McQueen’s favourite off-road bikes, a 1971 Husqvarna 400.

Not only was it once owned by the Hollywood legend, it is understood to have been the very bike that featured, with McQueen on-board, on the cover of the August 1971 issue of Sports Illustrated.

The bike had been purchased by its current owner from the Steve McQueen Estate Sale in 1984 at Harrah’s Auto Collection in Las Vegas. It comes with a wooden trunk of accessories as owned by McQueen.

Elsewhere in the catalogue, Bonhams will offer other McQueen ephemera, including numerous racing trophies won by the star of ‘The Great Escape’, ‘Bullitt’, ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ and ‘Le Mans’.

Well, he did other films, but those are the ones that really matter. And ‘The Magnificent Seven’, obviously...

...and ‘On Any Sunday’, too, a documentary on motorcycle sport made in 1971. While McQueen was considered a very capable racing driver, as an off-road, long-distance motorcyclist he was very good indeed – almost professional standard.

The chance to buy a 'bike that his son, Chad, reportedly said was from his father’s favourite off-road brand, is likely to attract fierce bidding at the Quail Lodge sale this May.

For further information, see www.bonhams.com.

Text: Steve Wakefield
Photos: Bonhams & Butterfields.