As a kid, watching Bullitt in the Southgate Odeon, I was enthralled, Steve McQueen who had previously served as a role model in The Great Escape became a god, the 'King of Cool'. Years later I was to discover that Steve wasn't quite as cool as we thought, and that indeed two of his finest 'movie moments' were down to the skills of his friend Bud Ekins, who did the jumps in The Great Escape and much of the driving in Bullitt.

Steve did do some of the driving, but not much. If you want to know when he's actually at the wheel of the Mustang, check the rear-view mirror, if you see him he's driving, at all other times it's Ekins.

The Dodge Charger is another matter however, for this was driven by a man who was to become a real hero of mine, actor and stuntman Bill Hickman.

Prior to Bullitt, Bill had worked as stuntman on TV series such as The Fugitive and the Jack Lemmon comedy The Great Race. As an actor its unlikely you will have noticed him - he was the fellow-cop accidentally shot by Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) at the end of The French Connection - however in Bullitt, with his steely cold eyes, horn-rimmed glasses and chisel jaw, he is every inch the archetypal hired killer.

Initially, and this is hard to believe, there wasn't going to be a car chase in Bullitt since Director Peter Yates had already done what he thought was the perfect chase in Robbery, a British thriller, while McQueen was happy to rest on the laurels of The Great Escape.

Eventually however it was decided that there would be a chase and that it should be special. Originally it had been intended that the chase would include a segment on the Golden Gate Bridge but the authorities refused to give permission.

Aficionados of the movie will be aware that there are several errors in the shooting of the sequence - the number of hubcaps that fall off, the green Volkswagen Beetle that keeps reappearing - however all that aside it remains one of the hottest car chases ever.

The chase kicks into life proper with Hickman clicking his safety belt shut and gunning the 440cc engine in pursuit of McQueen/Ekins. Minutes later he's lost the Mustang which has seemingly given him the slip. As Hickman drives on, looking for his quarry, the Mustang suddenly appears in his rear view mirror.

There is much trivia relating to the movie - Ekins, who is driving the Mustang remember - is also the hapless motorcycle rider that gets unseated. Furthermore the white-haired heavy riding shotgun (literally) in the Charger was terrified when he had to climb over the back seat to 'shoot' at McQueen, the guy was quite ill and almost in tears. Furthermore when the Charger crashes into the petrol station at the end of the chase it actually misses all the pumps and as a result the scene had to be very carefully edited. Finally you may have noticed that the chase carries on to Mansell Street (check the street sign), which is in McLaren Park.

As is ever the case, everyone remembers Steve while Ekins and Hickman hardly warrant a mention. Bill was soon to (almost) outdo the Bullitt chase however when he drove a Pontiac through the streets of New York in The French Connection. Another brilliant example of Hickman 'at work' can be found in the little-known The Seven Ups another stunning New York car chase. If you remember the Mustang Mach 1 in Diamonds are Forever and in particular the sideways down-the-alley stunt in Las Vegas, that was Hickman too, a much underrated driver who died in 1986 at the age of 65.