GTO 3987 on Mulholland

GTO 3987 on Mulholland

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Steve McQueen


In 1966, I was at the Chez Club in West Hollywood to see Buddy Rich perform. I was a teenager at the time. A good friend of Buddy’s was in our party. She turns to me and says, “You ought to meet Steve. The two of you have the same kind of Ferrari.” I asked, “Steve who?” whereupon she leads me over to where Steve McQueen is sitting on a barstool waiting for Buddy to appear. He and I spent the next twenty minutes talking about the Firestone Indy tires we both had on our Berlinetta Lussos and other car-related topics. Above is a photo of Steve and the Lusso he was driving that night, which recently sold for $2.31M. Below is a photo of me at the wheel of my Lusso before it was painted red.


A few years later, I was driving my Ferrari GTO along Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood. Coming from the opposite direction, I see a very rare British green Jaguar XK-SS approaching. The driver stops dead in the middle of the intersection to stare at my car, just as I was staring at his. The driver was Steve McQueen. He smiled and waved. I waved back and off we went on our separate ways.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I went to the Peterson Automotive Museum last week, and Steve McQueen's XK SS is there, prominently displayed at the front of the "Cars from Movies" section upstairs. It tells the story of the car's custom color and modifications per Mr. McQueen.

It's an awesome piece of history that you got to know him, and met up on the road while he was driving it.

Unknown said...

What an awesome story! I love the content you post on here and on YouTube as well. When I was younger I watched your YouTube videos and had a short conversation with you about how you acquired your GTO.. Cheers!