The Great Escape: How Steve McQueen pulled off the motorbike stunt

17 November 2025, 12:35 | Updated: 3 December 2025, 15:13

How they made one of the greatest scenes in movie history

The Great Escape isn't just one of the all-time great war movies. It's one of the best films of all time full stop.

That was thanks not just to the excellent story, absurdly starry cast (Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Donald, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasance, James Coburn, John Leyton and many, many more) and iconic score from Elmer Bernstein, but also an absolutely perfect motorbike stunt.

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The film was a fictionalised version of an attempted mass escape of British Commonwealth prisoners of war from Stalag Luft III in the Second World War, with McQueen playing The Cooler King, Captain Virgil Hilts.

And one of the things that didn't happen in real life was the final part of Hilts' escape attempt taking place on a motorcycle.

It's suggested that it was McQueen, a keen motorcyclist, was the person who suggested the scene, so he could have some fun and show off his skills.

Here's how it all came together.

The Great Escape (10/11) Movie CLIP - Motorcycle Escape (1963) HD

Firstly, that dangerous looking barbed wire. You probably won't be surprised to learn that it wasn't really barbed wire.

Instead it was just flat barbless wire, with bits of rubber tied around it to make it look like the more dangerous stuff.

But that didn't mean the stunt was risk free. And despite suggestions to the contrary, and the fact that McQueen was an accomplished rider, the presumably prohibitive cost of insuring the movie's lead star meant that the key shot featured McQueen's friend Bud Ekins, who fortunately looked a bit like his pal (from afar, anyway).

"It wasn't me," McQueen told Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show when the host tried to collaborate him for the stunt. "That was Bud Ekins."

His son Chad McQueen told The Times of his dad: "He did a lot of his own stunt work. And I think he could have done The Great Escape jump himself.

"I heard that he tried, but insurance is a funny thing when you're doing a big movie. They hired Bud to have him take the risks. I think the jump was an unbelievable achievement. I mean, if you look at it today you still go, ‘Wow!’ It was just way ahead of its time."

Bud himself told Cycle News years later that he was paid $1,000 for the stunt, ($10,600 or £8,000 in today's money).

"There were other stuntmen on the set and I learnt from them," he said. "This jump was shot on a Monday. On Sunday, Steve, myself, an Australian motocross racer and Tim Gibbes, an excellent rider, all went out to where we were going to shoot it.

"The effects man put a piece of string across at all these different heights. The bike was a 62 Triumph. It was completely stock. The first time, I'd take a run at it and jump maybe two feet off the ground.

"Then we would take a shovel and dig this natural ramp, changing the angles on it. And I'd jump four, six, eight feet and when we reached ten feet we said that's it! Nobody else from the crew knew we were there."

THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963) | Official Trailer | MGM

He added: "So when it comes to Monday none of us said we'd already done it. When I went ahead and did it, we did it in one take. It seemed I was up in the air forever 10-12 feet and 65 feet distance jumped. When I was in the air it was dead silent."

Second unit director Robert Relyea has confirmed that as well as Ekins doing the scene in the movie, both Gibbes and McQueen himself could have actually done the shot.

"It's not commonly known, but Steve McQueen really did do the motorcycle jump over the fence, just not on film," Relyea was quoted as saying on a forum dedicated to the Triumph bike.

"McQueen was very frustrated that the insurance company wouldn't allow him to do the stunt on film, so he did it on his own time in secret just to prove to himself that he could do it.

"As most people know by now, it was his close friend, Bud Ekins, who did the jump on film. I directed the jump over the fence, and while the scene only lasts a few seconds, we had no idea it would become such an iconic piece of movie film history."

What we do know is that while he didn't do the actual jump that we see in the film, it's very much McQueen doing his own motorbiking in the rest of the scene.

What's more, McQueen didn't just play Hilts in those incredibly tense moments, but also the German soldiers chasing him.

"McQueen was allowed to perform many of the motorcycle chase scenes dressed as a German soldier," Relyea confirmed.

"Through distance, shooting angles, and editing, McQueen was often the German soldier driving the motorcycle and chasing himself."

As for the bike used, it was a Triumph TR6 Trophy. An anachronistic machine, given that the so-called Desert Sled only came into production in 1956 and was a British-made vehicle. It was painted up to look more like a German wartime bike for the movie.

The TR6 Trophy was a favourite of McQueen, and a year after The Great Escape was released he took part in the International Six Days Enduro on one of them. Years later, the actual bike was restored to its former glory and is now on display at Triumph's factory at Hinckley.