Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Hollywood has its fair
Speaker 1: share of iconic automobiles. The winged race car from Chitty
Speaker 1: Chitty Bang Bang, the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazard,
Speaker 1: and perhaps the most famous car ever to grace the
Speaker 1: silver screen, Doc Brown's DeLorean time machine from Back to
Speaker 1: the Future. But there is another car. Its story is
Speaker 1: one of tragedy and horror, more like something out of
Speaker 1: a Stephen King novel than reality, but oddly enough, we've
Speaker 1: never seen it in a single film. The n Poor
Speaker 1: Spider was built as a racing car, meant for the
Speaker 1: tracks rather than the open road. Its design was iconic.
Speaker 1: It's sleek aluminum body sat low on a steel frame,
Speaker 1: hugging the ground as on horses pulled it along. Two
Speaker 1: large round headlights stared straight ahead, almost in surprise at
Speaker 1: just how fast that tiny car could go. In nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five, only one star had the audacity to drive
Speaker 1: such a machine outside the confines of a closed track.
Speaker 1: He was a cultural icon a legend, a rebel, James Dean.
Speaker 1: His story is one of misfortune, a young man taken
Speaker 1: far too soon. His legacy lives on in his films,
Speaker 1: which are still regarded as some of the most influential
Speaker 1: in all of cinema. And that car, well, that car
Speaker 1: has a legacy all its own. It was in late
Speaker 1: September of nineteen fifty five win Dean's Porsche collided with
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifty Ford Tutor, a hulking two door sedan
Speaker 1: with chrome bumpers. He'd been on his way to Selina's,
Speaker 1: California for a race, pushing the car to its limit.
Speaker 1: The Tutor had attempted to make a left, but didn't
Speaker 1: see Dean careening down the road in time. The Porsche
Speaker 1: was a wreck, a crushed heap of metal and rubber that,
Speaker 1: following Dean's death, was bought by George Barriss. If that
Speaker 1: name sounds familiar, it's because George Barriss created some of
Speaker 1: film and television's most beloved cars, including Adam West's nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six Batmobile. Barris had been the one to customize
Speaker 1: the Porsche for Dean before his crash. He put stripes
Speaker 1: over the rear wheels, reupholstered the seats, and painted the
Speaker 1: number one thirty on the doors, engine cover, and hood.
Speaker 1: Barriss had the wrecked car towed to his shop, but
Speaker 1: as it was being loaded onto the trailer, it slipped off,
Speaker 1: trapping the mechanic underneath. When they removed the chassis, it
Speaker 1: was clear the man's leg had been broken. Barriss decided
Speaker 1: it would be better to chop up the car and
Speaker 1: sell some of the part it's off. A man named
Speaker 1: Troy McHenry bought the engine, while one William es Grid
Speaker 1: bought the drive train. They put the components into their
Speaker 1: own cars and thought that a race between the two
Speaker 1: of them would be a perfect display of the Porsche's
Speaker 1: repurposed engineering. During the race, mckenry's car lost control and
Speaker 1: hit a tree. He died instantly. Es Grid was almost
Speaker 1: killed when his own vehicle locked up and flipped during
Speaker 1: a turn. But Barriss, unconvinced of the spider's supposed curse,
Speaker 1: would not be deterred. He sold two unscathed tires to
Speaker 1: a brand new owner, who ran off the road after
Speaker 1: both of them blew out at the same time. It
Speaker 1: seemed no part of this car wanted to be separated
Speaker 1: from the whole. Of course, owning such an infamous piece
Speaker 1: of movie history brings its own problems, and no not
Speaker 1: of the supernatural kind. Two thieves attempted to steal pieces
Speaker 1: of the Porsche from Barrass's garage, no doubt, to sell
Speaker 1: them for a quick buck, But I've seen the car
Speaker 1: had other ends. The thief who tried to remove the
Speaker 1: steering wheels sliced his arm wide open, and his cohort,
Speaker 1: who had been struggling with one of the seats, suffered
Speaker 1: a similar injury. After all, the stories of various accidents
Speaker 1: and depth surrounding the car got around, the only people
Speaker 1: brave enough to take possession of it were the California
Speaker 1: Highway Patrol. They wanted a striking display for their highway
Speaker 1: safety museum to scare people into being more defensive drivers,
Speaker 1: and what better example than the most famous car wreck
Speaker 1: of all time. They carded the metal carcass off to
Speaker 1: a police garage, which quickly burned down after accepting it
Speaker 1: through the doors. The car, however, suffered no damage, well
Speaker 1: no more than it already had. The wreck then moved
Speaker 1: to an exhibit at a local high school, where it
Speaker 1: flipped off its mount and broke a student's hip. James
Speaker 1: Dean's zippy little race car had developed the blood lust
Speaker 1: of sorts. Having had enough of the bizarre events surrounding
Speaker 1: the car, the highway patrol did it onto a truck
Speaker 1: bound for storage. If I were a betting man, I'd
Speaker 1: bet that truck never made it, and I'd be right.
Speaker 1: It flipped during transport and the driver was tossed from
Speaker 1: the cab. He landed somehow in the path of the spider,
Speaker 1: which fell from the back of the truck and crushed him.
Speaker 1: Barris knew something had to give. He bought the car back.
Speaker 1: No one else needed to get hurt or die over it.
Speaker 1: But it was during this final transport back to his
Speaker 1: garage when the strangest thing happened yet the car vanished.
Speaker 1: No one has seen it ever since. You might think
Speaker 1: that the curse, if you believe in such a thing,
Speaker 1: began with James Dean's death, as though his vengeful spirit
Speaker 1: had inhabited the car. Doo mean all who dared to
Speaker 1: own a piece of it. But you'd be surprised if
Speaker 1: you knew the truth and the other person responsible for it,
Speaker 1: just after he had the car upgraded by Barriss. James
Speaker 1: Dean ran into an other famous actor outside a Hollywood restaurant.
Speaker 1: He invited him to take a look at his new
Speaker 1: ride parked out front. The actor walked around the little
Speaker 1: Porsche and then turned to Dean with a sour look
Speaker 1: on his face and said, if you get in that car,
Speaker 1: you'll be found dead in it by this time next week.
Speaker 1: He was right too. Dean died in that car crash
Speaker 1: seven days later, and the actor who had given him
Speaker 1: the ominous warning none other than Obi Wan Kenobi himself,
Speaker 1: Sir Alec Guinness. There's a reason so many people are
Speaker 1: afraid of heights, except it's not the heights they're afraid of,
Speaker 1: rather the risk of falling. The World Health Organization has
Speaker 1: estimated that each year about sixty thousand people die from
Speaker 1: some kind of fall, for simple stumbles to Christmas light
Speaker 1: disasters on the roof. Humans just can't seem to stay
Speaker 1: on their feet or land on them well most of
Speaker 1: the time. That is because many of us have heard
Speaker 1: stories of people who have fallen from airplanes and lived
Speaker 1: to tell the tale. In fact, between nineteen forty and
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, fifty seven people fell from airplanes during
Speaker 1: crashes and survived. A fall from a great height isn't
Speaker 1: always a death sentence, as long as you have somewhere
Speaker 1: nice and comfy to land. Water works well as the snow. However,
Speaker 1: in the case of one man in nineteen thirties Detroit,
Speaker 1: a safe landing meant using whoever was available. Yes, you
Speaker 1: heard me right, whoever. Joseph Figlock probably didn't expect to
Speaker 1: be involved in a freak accident that day. He had
Speaker 1: been sweeping up an alley when it happened. It had
Speaker 1: fallen from above. No, not a meteor or an airplane,
Speaker 1: not even a rogue satellite thrown down from its orbit.
Speaker 1: It was a baby, and it lived four stories above him.
Speaker 1: Whoever had been watching the child, perhaps the mother or
Speaker 1: a nanny, had lost track of him. When he found
Speaker 1: the open window, seeing a new space to explore, the
Speaker 1: baby crawled toward it, and, once at the precipice, kept going.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing Joseph had decided to do a
Speaker 1: little cleaning that day, otherwise things might have gone much differently.
Speaker 1: The baby landed right on top of his head and shoulders.
Speaker 1: Both of them suffered minor injuries, but the baby survived
Speaker 1: the ordeal. It was probably more traumatic for the mother,
Speaker 1: who wondered where her child might have gone, only to
Speaker 1: panic at the site of the open window. And Joseph
Speaker 1: Figlock was a hero, albeit an unintentional one, But he
Speaker 1: didn't let his accidental status go to his head. He
Speaker 1: carried on with his life as usual, sweeping out the
Speaker 1: alley each day, expecting what anyone else might have expected,
Speaker 1: that what had happened to him would be a one
Speaker 1: time occurrence. Except the following year, another child, this one
Speaker 1: a little bit older than the first, decided an open
Speaker 1: window would be the perfect place to play. He drifted
Speaker 1: too close and lost his footing, falling four stories towards
Speaker 1: his impending death below. Well, he would have, except a
Speaker 1: certain person happened to be standing between the boy and
Speaker 1: the pavement. Joseph Figlock at once again found himself in
Speaker 1: the precarious position of catching a falling child. Neither Joseph
Speaker 1: nor the toddler were seriously injured in the fall, though
Speaker 1: I'm sure Joseph kept his eyes to the sky while
Speaker 1: sweeping the alley. From that point forward, it must have
Speaker 1: been surprising to learn that while lightning might not strike
Speaker 1: the same spot twice. Babies certainly can. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.