Book Review: McQueen's Machines, the cars and bikes of a hollywood icon, by Matt Stone, softcover edition

by the numbers
5 chapters
92 pieces of paper between the covers, none blank, none wasted

The form and layout are fine. There is so much to cover and space isn't wasted, only 6 pages are text only, all the rest are both pictures and text.

High quality photos, about half are new, and half vintage photographs. 100 black and white, 135 color

No complaints at all. Since it isn't possible to show a photo of every car, truck, bike, and airplane that Steve McQueen ever had, as I think probably half were likely never photographed, though I'd like to see more photos of the vehicles I don't think that is realistic to expect we will ever find a more complete collection of them than this book.

the chapters divide the book into McQueen's Garage, Screen, Track, Two Wheels, and Enduring Legacy

The 1st chapter covers the '53 Siata 208s, the '58 Porsche Speedster 1600 super, the '57 Jaguar XK/SS, the '63 Ferrari 250 Lusso, the '67 Mini Cooper S, a single photo of a 66 Vette tail and it's whereabouts are unknown, the '67 Ferrari 275 GTS/4 NART Spyder (one of 10 built), Jeep CJ that Von Dutch pinstriped, '69 Porsche 911S, the '52 Hudson Wasp, and has a more brief look and text about the '49 Cadillac series 62, the '57 Bel Air, the 50's 3100 series Chevy truck, and both a '57 and a '68 Ford truck.

Then only text to list the half track Army surplus that he left with Von Dutch in Arizona, a '51 Hudson Hornet, a 53 Allard with a hemi, a '49 Cadillac 4 dr, a '31 Lincoln Club Sedan, a '35 Chrysler Airflow, a '30 Cadillac coupe, a WW2 Willys Jeep, and 3 Packards: a '39 Super 8 four door sedan, a rare Super 8 convertible coupe, and a '40 series 120 convertible coupe.

Mentioned, and with a couple photos are Steve's airplanes, a '41 and '45 Boeing Stearman, and a 1930's  PA-8 Pitcairn Mailwing,

Chapter 2 goes into detail and photos about Steve's movies and movie vehicles, The Great Escape, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Reivers, On Any Sunday, Le Mans, and The Hunter.

Chapter 3 Focuses on Steve's racing before movies, and later in 1968 with the Hurst Baja Boots, in 1969 at Ascot raceway, and Riverside and Sebring in 1970

Chapter 4 gets into Steve's passion for motorcycles, showing photos of 20 of them, and talking about them in great detail.

A Honda CA77 Dream Touring, a Triumph 650, a '46 Indian Chief, a Husqvarna 400 Cross, a '59 Triumph Bonneville, a 1914 Indian Model F boardtrack racer, a 1919 Indian Daytona Twin racer, the 1929 Scott Super Squirrel that Von Dutch restored and I've featured before, a '64 Triumph TR6 ISDT, Honda CR250 Elsinore, 1921 Indian dirt track racer, and his WW1 era Harley Davidson, a mid 1910's Pope, and 1926 Fowler

Chapter 5 is brief, and talks about the legacy Steve McQueen has, how the Bullitt movie was merchandised into Bullitt Mustangs, in both 2001 and 2008 by Ford... how the image of Steve has been used in cool tv commercials, etc.

You finish this book knowing you've had a thorough look at how Steve McQueen's movies and racing combined with the lifestyle and outgoing nature of his racing and motorcycle off roading made him one of the few ultimate car guys. The ones who can buy anything, race - restore - or collect, and decide to have the coolest and most useful cars, trucks, bikes and things that aren't going to just be dusted off and left on battery minders.

Probably the best book you'll find on Steve McQueen's passion for vehicles. Enjoy! 

the Steve McQueen dune buggy from "The Thomas Crown Affair" , Faye Dunaway looks like she's screaming every time they caught air

Steve McQueen and Paul Newman... both motorbike riders, and featured on Karamelocycles.blogspot.com

and to make an important point clear... I've never seen these images before! Bravo Karamelocycles!
http://karamelocycles.blogspot.com

Steve McQueen's 1953 Siata 208S Spyder

Found on http://driven.urbandaddy.com/

the only photo I've come acroiss of Steve McQueen's Stearman airplane

it was painted yellow when Steve owned it. the car is Steve's rare Jaguar SS

Whoa, have you seen the awesome stuff Swissstache.tumblr.com finds?

Swissstache found this on http://driven.urbandaddy.com/2011/12/13/long-live-the-king/ I've never seen Steve with this Vette before

wow.

 Ain't that effing incredible

The Apollo 15 astronauts, their Lunar Rover, and some of the Corvettes they'd been given.  Via http://blog.caranddriver.com/spaceflight-de-mayo-50-years-of-astronauts-and-corvettes/

another to end the days surfing: Liam Garrity's photo at the 2011 Famoso season http://www.bangshift.com/gallery/Liam-Garritty-photos-from-Famoso-s-2011-Season-gallery.html

 The above is the Land Speed Racing record holder of 1970, the Blue Flame, which was running on hydrogen peroxide and liquid natural gas. It's on permanent display at the Sinsheim Technik Museum in Germany. It was contructed in Milwaukee Wisconsin, and that record stood for 13 years

http://swissstash.tumblr.com/ for more great photos

This may be the coolest photo post I've done all year

Steve McQueen, A Passion For Speed, book review

In brief, here it is by the numbers
5 chapters
96 pieces of paper between the covers, 192 sides
27 of those sides are blank, have nothing but a caption to the opposite page photo, or are just title pages
25 and about 1/2 sides of paper are text. Total. Good reading, and highly informative yes... but not a lot for 192 sides of paper

The form and layout are nice, good presentation, with high quality photos

Photos: 49 color images, 4 of those were movie posters, 2 were of auctions and not of Steve, 2 magazine covers, and one full page advertisement for Porsche

Biggest disappointment is that the chapter on physical fitness, though a really good informational read, takes up 32 sides of paper and none of those are about the "Passion For Speed" as it relates to vehicles. They are about his workouts, training, exercise. Relates to his ability to endure the driving conditions on motorcycle, race cars, yes I can see that... because he stayed in good shape and the chapter proves it... but I wanted to be receiving pages of Steve and his "Speed" related vehicles in text or photos. Not his home gym and pool photos... to which there are 1.65 sides of paper of text. Yes, of 32 sides in the chapter on his fitness titled "The Body as Tuned Machine" poor grammar there, it has 29.35 sides of paper with black and white photos of Steve working out or swimming. Not good. 22 full sheets of black and white photos of Steve in this chapter, working out with weights 5 photos, 3 with punching bag, 5 misc, 10 swimming or at the pool/hot tub... this is ridiculous, and not what I want in a "Passion for Speed" all from a Time/Life photo shoot. Waste of space in this book.

26 photos of Steve with motorcycles, 4 of those were on the set of the Great Escape.

 4 photos with his Lola T70 at races (I've posted these before, here they are again for reference)

3 photos from the Sports Illustrated car review article in 1966 I posted here http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/12/steve-mcqueen-tests-new-gts-of-1966-for.html
2 photos of the Porsche 908 while racing from the 1970 12 hours of Sebring
5 photos from the set of Bullitt (and I haven't seen 4 of them before)

9 photos from the movie Thomas Crown Affair
13 photos from the movie LeMans

4 photos of Steve with the Jaguar SS

26 photos in the chapter about his garage (big disappointment)  that show his vehicles, none show his aircraft, but this may be due to that information perhaps being thoroughly covered by the book Steve McQueen's Garage. No photos of his garage, none of the garages he had, none of the vehicles in storage barns or hangers, and no photos of the vehicles he had collected... as a group or collection. So, to have a chapter on his "Garage" is in appropriately termed, as no images of any outside, open doored, or inside of his garages are in the chapter, nor in the book elsewhere. Damn disappointing.

5 of those 26 seem to be there to display his first wife and Steve, with vehicles, but one is a magazine cover that I've mentioned before, and another... get this, in the chapter about Steve's Garage, titled "McQueen's Garage" is a photo of Steve and wife Neile happily embraced on a couch for the 1963 Life photo shoot.

Another 5 of those 26 are auction promotion shots... 3 were motorcycles, one was the 57 Chev truck, and the other was the Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Lusso

Things I learned that I did not know:

The "Ringadingdoo" Kawasaki 100cc G31M, that he had an Excalibur he and his wife owned, that he'd been in the Marines - and the Merchant Marines where he had been a mechanic which prepped him for the Sand Pebbles role as an MM (machinsts mate in Navy lingo) ,  that he'd been a part time mechanic in a motorcycle shop that serviced James Dean's machine, how much work he'd had Tony Nancy do to his cars, and a good list of the cars, airplanes, and bikes that Steve had owned

This book doesn't get his name right. Author or edittor or both, ought to be ashamed.

 I think it may be an error copied from Wikipedia. This book says his first name is Terrence and that his middle name is Steven. His 1977 vehicle registration and this mugshot I've posted before shows that the police labeled him Steve T McQueen. And DMV and cops usually get that sort of bureaucratic detail about first names first, middle names inthe middle, and last name last... correctly. So, would he be named by his parents with his fathers first name (Terrance) as a first or middle name? Usually that middle name is the one from the parent.

Also http://stevemcqueen.com/biography says his middle name is Terrence

Another error was calling a Ford a "Tutor" not a Tudor. Seems like a typo perhaps, but its the same error found in other accounts of the James Dean wreck http://history1900s.about.com/od/1950s/qt/deandies.htm 
 
Things not in the book that belong, the story about tricking the cops into giving him and his wife an escort to the hospital in the Jaguar SS http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/05/steve-and-some-of-his-cars.html
 
I don't recall any mention of his time spent talking to, or interacting with Carroll Shelby (who loaned him a Cobra for a couple months to entice a sale), or driving the Cobra (excluding the Sports Illustrated car review article) no mention of Max Balchowsky on the Bullitt Mustang and Charger work, or of Steve's hanging out at Max's "Hollywood Motors" that I read somewhere was connected to his friendship with James Coburn who turned Steve onto Ferrari's and introduced him to Max because Coburn had his sports cars kept up by Max.

No mention of the 1969 Baja race where Steve was co-driving a Hurst Baja Boot. James Garner was also in that race was a friend... and neighbor who Steve would piss off by tossing empty beer cans onto his drive way... and co star (along with James Coburn) in the movie Great Escape

and when you know that Steve owned 210 motorcycles, 55 cars, 5 airplanes... you expect more would have been mentioned and shown.


 
Overall impression of this book...
 
 not worth the money (40 dollars list from the publisher http://www.qbookshop.com/products/194742/9780760342480/Steve-McQueen.html ) but online for about 25 bucks new, less if used. The less you pay the better the trade of your money for the amount of information and entertainment you'll recieve. There have been about 2 dozen books made about Steve McQueen, and a ton of information available online (I've posted lots myself) and this book doesn't compete well enough to justify your time and it's full price cost
 
Not well editted
 22 sides of paper have nothing, or just a caption for the opposite side, too much about French poets, and Japanese philosophers
 
Not well researched / not well filled.
 I've posted many photos of Steve from many sources, and some info and stories http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search/label/Steve%20McQueen... and this book wasn't filled with the many easily learned things about Steve McQueen and his enthusiasm for racing in buggies, cars, and motorcycles.. too much is missing and so easily found online (like http://www.tv.com/people/steve-mcqueen/trivia/ )
 
This book failed to impress me with the chapter "McQueen's Garage"and wasted 22 sides of paper on photos from a Life or Time magazine gallery of Steve's workout.