When I lived in Fla., I had a friend who called me up all excited. Come see what I got...hurry. So I go over and there was this pretty sad looking Ducatti like on-off road bike. I don't remember the Model, I want to say Scrambler or something. Ran but barely and he was all giddy about it. I was like OK so what's the deal? Turns out this was the bike that Steve McQueen drove around the lot of the movie Great Escape. He even had a picture of it from back then. McQueen demanded that they put rear pegs on it so that he could ride his then girlfriend Ali McGraw around with him. This pic showed that bike with both of them on it. The first thing I thought was, how do we know this is that bike?
He had paid some guy to track back the paperwork. Since they bought it over there, it was shipped back as "Movie Equipment" on a long list of Customs paperwork it was shown but no VIN. They tracked the VIN back through Ducati and they confirmed it was the same bike. He had bought it from someone who had no idea what it was. Been sitting in various locations, here and there throughout the years and he came by it at an auction.
It was NO JOKE when he sold it to a collector! He made out HUGE on that stupid ratty old bike I would have never given a 2nd look to. You just have to know what you're seeing when you're looking.