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Entertainment & Media
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A Tale of Two Triumphs: The Myth Behind Fonzie's and Steve McQueen's Motorcycles
It's a legendary piece of Hollywood trivia: Fonzie's bike was the same one Steve McQueen jumped the fence with in The Great Escape. But is it true? The real story connects two iconic Triumphs not by identity, but by a legendary stuntman who owned them both.
It’s one of the coolest stories in pop culture history, a perfect intersection of two icons of cool. The story goes that the Triumph motorcycle Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli rode in Happy Days was the very same bike that Steve McQueen, the "King of Cool" himself, famously used to jump the barbed-wire fence in the 1963 classic, The Great Escape. Even Fonzie himself, Henry Winkler, has told the tale.
"This is the motorcycle that Steve McQueen jumped the fence with in The Great Escape. They had it in a warehouse, I think, at Paramount, and they painted it silver... And that's the bike. It's the same bike."
It’s a fantastic anecdote. Unfortunately, it’s a myth. While the two legendary motorcycles share a fascinating connection, they are not the same bike. The true story, however, is arguably even more interesting.
The Fonz and His Ride
Fonzie’s iconic motorcycle was a 1949 Triumph Trophy TR5 Scrambler Custom. It was a rugged, stripped-down machine perfectly suited to his cool, leather-clad image. However, there was a small problem: Henry Winkler was famously terrible at riding a motorcycle. He admitted to being terrified of the bike, which was difficult to start and heavy to handle. In most scenes, the bike is being pushed or held steady by the crew just out of frame. The few times Fonzie is seen actually riding it, it's for very short distances and often involves the bike being pulled by a rope attached to a truck.
McQueen's Great Escape
The motorcycle from The Great Escape was a different beast altogether. For the film, set during World War II, the production needed a bike that could pass for a German BMW R75. The solution was to use a much more capable and modern (for the time) 1961 Triumph TR6 Trophy. The bikes were painted and modified to look like German military motorcycles. The legendary 65-foot jump over the fence wasn't performed by Steve McQueen, an accomplished rider himself, but by his friend and legendary stuntman, Bud Ekins. The studio's insurance wouldn't allow their star to attempt such a dangerous stunt.
The Real Connection: Bud Ekins
So, if they weren't the same bike, where did the story come from? The common thread linking these two pieces of Hollywood history is the stuntman who performed the jump: Bud Ekins. Ekins was more than just a stunt performer; he was a champion off-road racer and owned a popular Triumph motorcycle shop in Hollywood that supplied countless bikes to film and television productions. He provided the Triumph TR6 for The Great Escape, and years later, he was the one who rented the Triumph TR5 to the producers of Happy Days. Both bikes came from the same legendary Hollywood stable. It's easy to see how the story evolved over time. A bike "from the guy who did the jump in The Great Escape" likely morphed into "the bike from The Great Escape." While Fonzie may not have been riding the exact same machine as McQueen's character, his motorcycle shared a direct lineage to one of the greatest movie stunts ever performed, connecting two generations of cool through the legacy of Bud Ekins.