If you grew up with a Baby Boomer dad as I did, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the 1963 film ‘The Great Escape’ at least once in your life. Watching Bud Ekins jump over a 12-foot-tall barbed-wire fence on a modified 1962 Triumph TR6 Trophy (dressed to look like a German wartime motorcycle) was awe-inspiring to my old man’s generation.
Standing in for Steve McQueen - who did most of his own riding in the film save for that final, infamous jump - Ekins performed the stunt in a single take due to insurance restrictions. That 60-foot motorcycle jump put Triumph motorcycles at the forefront of American motorcycle culture.
Every young rider in the country wanted to be McQueen, escaping from a German POW camp by gapping a massive entanglement of barbed wire on a modified Triumph.
