Bud Ekins 1930-2007
We all wanted to be Steve McQueen. Steve McQueen wanted to be Bud Ekins.
MARC COOK
BUD EKINS HAS FINALLY MADE THE GREAT ESCAPE. Inexorably tied to the barbwire-fence jump in the 1963 film that helped launch good friend Steve McQueen into stardom, Ekins’ accomplishments went far beyond stuntman and mentor to McQueen.
Four times an ISDT gold medalist, Ekins created the first American team to contest the ISDT; the 1964 running held in East Germany. Ekins enlisted brother Dave, Cliff Coleman, John Steen and some handsome young racer by the name of McQueen. In grueling conditions, the team failed to finish,
Ekins breaking his leg and McQueen destroying his motorcycle after a collision with a spectator who rode across the course.
A California native, Ekins became established as a front-running dirt racer of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Racing primarily Triumph and Matchless, he proved dominant in SoCal desert racing and scrambles, taking the number-one district plate seven times in the 1950s before heading to Europe to race motocross, one of the first Americans to do so.
Ekins is also considered to be the father of the Baja 1000 after suggesting in 1962 that the course run from Tijuana to La Paz, Baja California, a brutal 950-mile stint that roughly followed Mexico Highway 1.
Ekins might have been perfectly content to race in California and Mexico for his entire career, but a fateful meeting with up-and-coming actor McQueen in the late 1950s changed the course of his life.
“There was an actor named Dick Powell,” Ekins recalled in a 2007 interview. “His son was Norman. I sold Norman a new motorcycle in, I think, 1959. He took it home and his wife said, ‘Get rid of it. Take it back.’”
At the time, McQueen was working for the elder Powell’s Four Star Productions, which produced his cowboy TV series “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” and he took over ownership of Norman’s Triumph. Popping into Ekin’s shop soon after, McQueen wondered if the bike’s warranty was still good.
“I said, ‘Sure, no problem,”’ remembered Ekins, “and then he proceeded to hang around and be a pain in the ass for the next 25 years.”
Such a harsh assessment belied the close bond between Ekins and McQueen, fueled by the star’s consuming love of two-wheeled machinery that would soon grow to include dirtbikes. “Steve saw all those Triumphs at the back with no headlights and was curious about those, too,” Ekins said. “I agreed to take him out and show him the ropes.”
McQueen was a quick study, and the partnership helped bring Ekins onto The Great Escape set as a stuntman.
“Steve was really good, could have done the jump himself but the insurance company was afraid of him getting hurt, so I did the stunt,” said Ekins of the famous jump.
Ekins would follow McQueen onto four wheels as well, most notably in the iconic movie Bullitt. While McQueen did much of the driving in the 390-cube Mustang, Ekins did the riskier stunts, including the motorcycle crash near the end of the seminal chase scene. Ekins insisted that McQueen be behind the wheel of the oncoming Mustang for that stunt because he trusted no one as much. Ekins earned respect as a stuntman in such films as Electra Glide in Blue, Towering Inferno, Diamonds are Forever and The Blues Brothers.
Ekins was faithful to Triumph and disdainful of the two-stroke dirtbikes that began to take over desert racing in the 1960s. “I had a really nice store on Ventura Boulevard, surrounded by apartments. I didn’t want to disturb the neighborhood with something that went ringding-ding-ding, ” he said.
In addition to owning a Triumph dealership that more than once employed the legendary Von Dutch, Ekins was an inveterate motorcycle collector whose cache is said to have numbered more than 150 at its peak. He restored American and European motorcycles in his Hollywood shop, boasting that every one was fully road-worthy. Even slowed by the need to use a wheelchair in later years, he was constantly in demand as a concours judge here and abroad.
Ekins helped McQueen begin collecting as well. Asked if McQueen would ever leverage his fame to close the deal on a bike he particularly wanted, Ekins said, “Damn right he would. And he would get it.”
Lesser men might have run from the long shadow cast by Steve McQueen, but Ekins remained an ally to the end, offering himself to various McQueen documentaries, speaking tirelessly and eloquently about his great friend, no doubt secure in the knowledge that his own place in motorcycle history was already assured. □
