The Curse of James Dean's Porsche

[black roadster]

I was doing some reading about James Dean's 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder and come across this interesting story.

Little Bastard was mangled and nearly torn in two. Roth was quoted as saying the car was “looking like a crumpled pack of cigarettes.” Despite his misgivings and bad feelings, George Barris bought the wreck for parts for $2,500. Upon arrival at the garage, the wreck slipped off the trailer, breaking a mechanic's leg.

But the misfortune did not stop there. The engine was sold to Troy McHenry and the drive-train purchased by William Eschrid, both physicians who were planning to use the parts in their own race cars. On October 2, 1956 at the Pamona Fairgrounds in California, the doctors raced their vehicles for the first time using the parts from Little Bastard. McHenry's Porsche Spyder spun out of control and hit a tree, killing him instantly. Eschrid was seriously injured when his car rolled over going into a curve.

Two of the Porsche's tires were unharmed during Dean's accident. Barris sold those to young man who returned within days. Both tires had blown simultaneously, causing him to run off the road.

One souvenir-seeking young man attempted to steal the steering wheel from the wreckage at the garage. He ripped his arm open on jagged piece of metal. Another person was injured while trying to steal a piece of bloodstained upholstery.

Because of these incidents, Barris decided to store the wreck but was persuaded by CHP (CA Hwy Patrol) to loan the wreck out for use in a traveling highway safety exhibit. Two uneventful exhibits took place but prior to the third, a garage in Fresno that was used to store Little Bastard went up in flames, destroying everything except the Porsche. The car barely suffered scorched paint. While on display at a Sacramento CA high school, a student's hip was broken when the car fell off its pedestal. Later, while en route to Salinas, the truck driver lost control, was thrown free, and then killed when Little Bastard fell off the flatbed and on top of him, crushing him. A freeway accident was caused two years later when the car fell off another flatbed truck, crashing onto the road. In 1958, a truck carrying the Porsche was parked on a hillside in Oregon. The truck's brakes slipped and crashed into another car, shattering its window. In 1959 while on display in New Orleans, Little Bastard suddenly broke into eleven pieces. No one was ever able to determine the cause of that incident.

In 1960, the car was crated after an exhibit in Miami Fl. It was placed on a truck bound for Los Angeles CA and never arrived. Little Bastard vanished and its current whereabouts are unknown.

[srivendel]

That's incredible if it's all true. Here's a piece of follow-up from this summer:

Stopping just short of going on to America’s Most Wanted, Volo Auto Museum announced it will pay $1 million for the missing 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder that James Dean drove to his death almost fifty years ago. The Spyder was customized by the legendary George Barris who also built the ‘49 Mercury that Dean drove in “Rebel without a Cause”. Before the car’s disappearance in 1958, it had been linked to a series of deaths, injuries, and unusual events for those involved and subsequently became known as the “The Curse of the James Dean Death Car”.

S.

[RX7-2nr]

that is nuts. pretty interesting!