This one it’s a 1938 Harley-Davidson WLD Solo Sport wearing original paint from the factory with odometer showing 21,000 miles.
McQueen’s ownership is fully documented and goes with motorcycle, including: original bill of sale from estate sale, odometer statement from estate sale, original auction catalog from estate sale and 1984 Certificate of Authenticity.
Also includes McQueen’s personal tools found wrapped in a piece of denim in the frame mounted tool box.
Mecum Auction will be held on November 24-25, 2013 at the Imperial Palace Hotel in Las Vegas.
How many bikes did he own?
Peter, he owned lots of motorcycles and toys. He was very wealthy.
Neat unrestored bike.Rodent,Steve started out with jack in juvie and raced for cash.
Old Milwaukee? He must have been thirsty for a quenching slake.
I just got off the phone with Kick-Start M/C Parts and agree that there is no way anyone reading this can ever “leave” motorcycles, because there’s nothing else out there for you.
If your a biker and try to leave “bikes” for something else, you’ll wither and die. And you can’t die without leaving some bikes behind, like Steve or why were you even on earth to begin with?
The economy boom-bubble is getting prit-tee thin…. and if you don’t plunder your brokerage account now….. Wall Street will – as soon as they map a course around current federal restraints – one day you’ll wake up and 1/3 of your savings will have vanished into thin-air, again. It’s getting about that time again. The circle of devastation around Detroit is growing larger, but people cut and skrimp and cobble together an existence and think, “We’ll this ain’t so bad… we’re getting by….” till one day a keystone economic support will slip and then nobody’s “getting by”.
Buy a motorcycle. It’s a lot easier to ride-out a recession on a 5-yr. extended warranty Sportster, than it is to be home-bound and cutting into your remnant reserves that Wall Street leaves you with to buy a bike later.
Did you notice the t-shirt? Looks like it has the Indian script logo…
ha ha Kirk, you must be a beer lover, I noticed the old mill , right away.
I love my beer.
Cool bike any guess on what it will sell for ?
I wish I had Steve’s best bike, looks so well kept.
Kool bike ,,,,
runor says he had over 500
Unless someone publishes (and validates per DMV) a list of ALL the bikes he ever owned, these “Steve owned” bikes could keep coming out until Hell freezes over……….
Just saying….. Caveat emptor.
-nicker-
Old bikes are great,but not that great.This wanting to own a “piece” of a hero borders on worshipping the dead or having a collection of saints bones in a medieval Catholic reliquary.It seems an icon of worship is for sale not a bike.Steve McQueen might have been the “Jesus of Cool” but he was no saint.
You are right nicker,and how can a “Steve owned” bike be valued if you can’t determine its provenance,use or knowing how many others are lurking under a dust cover somewhere? By valued I don’t just mean an auction price,but if Steve actually rode the bike and not just wheeled it around in the hangar to get it out of the way.
“Steve McQueen might have been the “Jesus of Cool” but he was no saint.”
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Actually he was the God of Cool. Who else do we know that rode bikes, kept his own counsel (hid cancer successfully for a while) and died fighting for his life, in a double-wide trailer on a perpetually dark and lonely wind-swept cliff in Baja. Jezus!
McQueen was alive. We don’t know fro sure about Jesus, because we weren’t there and only have the writings of a group of wine drinking, swinging-dicks to suggest so. Women were not allowed to write zip apparently.
So yeah, you can have two Gods – Clapton and McQueen. How much more inspiration do you need to get through life?
Not surprisingly, Steve McQueen had been slotted as a non-commodity like Buddy Holly.
When he found out he cancer, he grew a beard to hide the ravages and then Hollywood began pecking at him like a flock of chickens – couldn’t wait to tear him down.
Hope his Indian goes to a rider-type.
“Sadly, Steve passed away on November 7, 1980 in Chihuahua, Mexico.” – Glenn Bator, 2013
The Dates for Imperial Palace auction are when the bike was originally sold.
The Mecum auction is going to be in Anaheim, CA November 21-23.
My former employer used to own this bike and it was last auctioned in Vegas around January 2012.
I helped get this bike running and got to ride it a few years back. It is very original for 75 years old. It didn’t have those saddlebags though.