WEBVTT - Was James Dean's Final Car Cursed? 0:00:01.890 --> 0:00:07.630 Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeart Podcasts. Hey BrainStuff, 0:00:07.690 --> 0:00:12.830 Lauren Vogelbaum here. James Dean, one of the most recognizable 0:00:12.950 --> 0:00:16.070 bad boy actors of the 20th century, lived a fast 0:00:16.170 --> 0:00:19.910 life off screen as well as on. After filming what 0:00:19.950 --> 0:00:23.250 would be his last movie, Giant, alongside Elizabeth Taylor and 0:00:23.270 --> 0:00:26.750 Rock Hudson in the summer of 1955, he bought himself 0:00:26.810 --> 0:00:31.600 a new Porsche that September, lovingly named Little Bastard. Dean 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.379 owned the car for only nine days before he died 0:00:34.420 --> 0:00:39.380 in it. It was a curvaceous silver Porsche 550 Spyder, 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:41.970 one of the fastest cars in the world at the time. 0:00:41.990 --> 0:00:45.489 It had an open top, a windscreen that came up 0:00:45.510 --> 0:00:48.250 to the driver's chin, and a ride height so low 0:00:48.310 --> 0:00:51.229 the car could scoot under a railroad crossing barrier, which 0:00:51.430 --> 0:00:54.190 one race driver did, and continue on to a top 0:00:54.250 --> 0:00:56.200 speed of 140 miles an hour. That's 220 kilometers an hour. 0:00:59.630 --> 0:01:03.670 It was built for racing, but totally street legal. Temptation 0:01:03.710 --> 0:01:07.250 on wheels. If you've never seen photos, it always reminds 0:01:07.310 --> 0:01:12.050 me of a shark. Like a sexy metal shark. Porsche 0:01:12.090 --> 0:01:16.590 produced 550 Spiders from 1953 to 1956, and built just 0:01:16.590 --> 0:01:19.750 90 of them in that time. Only a few are 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:22.680 known to survive today, because even a minor collision could 0:01:22.740 --> 0:01:26.040 total the car. They were made of aluminum, so they 0:01:26.060 --> 0:01:29.120 were designed for speed, not to hold up in a crash, 0:01:29.420 --> 0:01:32.670 and definitely not to protect their occupants. It didn't take 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.490 anywhere close to 140 miles an hour for a collision 0:01:35.530 --> 0:01:39.770 to prove fatal. Dean's studio forbid him from racing while 0:01:39.810 --> 0:01:42.650 he was filming. His previous car had been a Porsche 0:01:42.650 --> 0:01:46.750 356 Speedster. Cars like these, in the hands of an 0:01:46.890 --> 0:01:50.950 infamous hothead, were a recipe for disaster. And that was 0:01:51.070 --> 0:01:55.030 even before Little Bastard earned its reputation for being cursed. 0:01:56.290 --> 0:02:00.790 Here's what we know. On September 30th of 1955, Dean 0:02:00.810 --> 0:02:02.790 was behind the wheel of the Spider on his way 0:02:02.830 --> 0:02:05.880 to Salinas, California, a few hours north of L.A., to 0:02:05.940 --> 0:02:08.820 race at a Sports Car Club of America event. For 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:12.520 the race, Dean had the racing number 130, stylishly emblazoned 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:16.400 in black paint on the hood, doors, and rear. His 0:02:16.460 --> 0:02:21.859 Porsche-trained mechanic, Rolf Wuderich, was riding shotgun. When Dean collided 0:02:21.900 --> 0:02:25.380 with another vehicle at 5.45 that evening, he was killed 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:29.280 in the wreck. He was just 24 years old. Vuderich 0:02:29.340 --> 0:02:32.400 was seriously injured but survived, and the driver of the 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:36.450 other car was able to walk away. That driver was 0:02:36.470 --> 0:02:40.150 23-year-old Donald Turnipseed, a student at Cal Poly, who was 0:02:40.190 --> 0:02:43.029 driving a two-door Ford sedan that was twice the weight 0:02:43.050 --> 0:02:46.870 of the Spider. Turnipseed made a left turn directly into 0:02:46.910 --> 0:02:49.769 Dean's path, and though Dean is said to have swerved, 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:55.000 the collision couldn't be avoided. Contemporary estimates put Dean's speed 0:02:55.300 --> 0:02:58.800 at 85 miles an hour. That's 135 kilometers an hour. 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:02.540 But modern computer models by crash scene analysts show that 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.430 the Porsche was traveling no more than 60 miles an hour. 0:03:05.620 --> 0:03:09.829 That's 95 kilometers an hour. At the time, investigators may 0:03:09.850 --> 0:03:13.010 have assumed that Dean was driving faster, partially because he 0:03:13.050 --> 0:03:15.510 got a speeding ticket earlier that day for going about 0:03:15.510 --> 0:03:20.760 70 or 110 in metric. Whatever the case, eyewitnesses said 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.600 that they saw the Porsche cartwheel into a nearby ditch. 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:27.630 James Dean was declared dead at the scene and probably 0:03:27.669 --> 0:03:31.710 died on impact. The intersection where the crash occurred, at 0:03:31.790 --> 0:03:34.950 State Road 41 and what's now State Road 46, is 0:03:35.030 --> 0:03:39.460 notorious even today for being a hotspot for collisions. The 0:03:39.500 --> 0:03:43.180 sunlight is particularly dangerous in the early morning and late afternoon. 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.040 Dean was driving, and Turnipseed turning, right into the setting sun, 0:03:48.540 --> 0:03:52.120 and the road would have had a glaring shimmer. Turnipseed 0:03:52.140 --> 0:03:55.210 and Dean, whose Porsche put his eyeline just over 40 0:03:55.210 --> 0:03:57.590 inches or a meter off the ground, might not have 0:03:57.610 --> 0:04:00.750 even seen each other until it was too late. The 0:04:00.770 --> 0:04:04.210 intersection is now named the James Dean Memorial Junction, and 0:04:04.350 --> 0:04:07.110 there's a monument to him a safe distance off the road. 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:11.540 After the accident, the Porsche was declared a total loss 0:04:11.740 --> 0:04:14.940 and sent to a salvage yard. An acquaintance of Dean's 0:04:14.970 --> 0:04:18.390 from racing, one William Eshrich, went looking for Little Bastard 0:04:18.610 --> 0:04:21.890 and found the car in Burbank. He kept the engine 0:04:22.010 --> 0:04:24.330 and put it in his own Lotus Mark IX race car, 0:04:24.810 --> 0:04:27.589 then gave the transmission and suspension parts to a friend 0:04:27.650 --> 0:04:31.650 and fellow racer by the name of Troy McHenry. Setting 0:04:31.750 --> 0:04:35.270 off a string of creepy coincidences, just 11 months after 0:04:35.310 --> 0:04:39.330 Dean's death, both Eshrich and McHenry crashed their cars containing 0:04:39.380 --> 0:04:43.000 Little Bastard parts at the same race, the 1956 Pomona 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.740 Road Races. Eshrich survived, but McHenry's crash, a collision with 0:04:47.779 --> 0:04:51.580 the only tree on the racetrack, was fatal. By then, 0:04:51.820 --> 0:04:54.719 Dean's Porsche had been pretty much picked over, and not 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:58.539 many usable parts remained, but according to urban legend, there 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:03.159 was still plenty of mischief left in the car. Enter 0:05:03.420 --> 0:05:08.120 one George Barris. Barris was a renowned Hollywood custom car designer, 0:05:08.420 --> 0:05:12.020 responsible for the original Batmobile and the Munster's hearse. He 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:16.890 was clearly drawn to vehicles with odd stories. Barris claimed 0:05:16.930 --> 0:05:20.289 he bought Little Bastard's destroyed frame and body from Dean's family. 0:05:21.070 --> 0:05:23.550 He said he then sold two of the original tires 0:05:23.870 --> 0:05:25.980 and lent what was left of the mangled car frame 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.740 to the Los Angeles National Safety Council as a traveling display, 0:05:30.100 --> 0:05:34.380 ostensibly to scare motorists into behaving on the road. The 0:05:34.420 --> 0:05:37.750 wreck was displayed along with signs describing what happened, a 0:05:37.830 --> 0:05:41.650 newspaper clipping about Dean's death, and the cautionary words, this 0:05:41.830 --> 0:05:46.320 accident could have been avoided. Barris toured with the car's 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.100 bent and battered chassis, and he reported several strange and 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:54.099 horrible incidents from the traveling expo. He said the car 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:57.690 fell from its display or transport vehicles on several occasions, 0:05:58.070 --> 0:06:01.089 injuring a mechanic and a teenage bystander in two incidents 0:06:01.470 --> 0:06:04.049 and killing a truck driver hired to transport the car 0:06:04.130 --> 0:06:07.770 in a third. Those two tires Barris sold are said 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:12.530 to have blown simultaneously, causing another accident. Barris wrote in 0:06:12.570 --> 0:06:15.520 his memoir that the car gave off bad vibrations and 0:06:15.580 --> 0:06:18.260 claimed a thief who tried to steal the steering wheel 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:23.080 broke his arm during the attempt. Supposedly, the cursed car 0:06:23.140 --> 0:06:26.120 was last seen in storage in 1960 when it caught 0:06:26.180 --> 0:06:29.450 on fire, after which no one knows what happened to it. 0:06:30.950 --> 0:06:33.610 But it's unclear how much of this is true, and 0:06:33.750 --> 0:06:37.260 how much is even plausible. Other car collectors have said 0:06:37.300 --> 0:06:40.080 that Barris played up the legend of the car's curse, 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.780 perhaps as sort of a promotional scheme. And if you 0:06:43.820 --> 0:06:46.100 look at photos from the crash scene and of the 0:06:46.140 --> 0:06:48.700 car's remains when it was towed to salvage, and then 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.919 compare those to photos of the safety council's display using Barris' chassis, 0:06:53.380 --> 0:06:58.229 it's pretty obvious that you're dealing with two different cars. Barris' 0:06:58.350 --> 0:07:00.750 was dented in along the hood and the driver's side, 0:07:00.870 --> 0:07:03.150 with a bit of scorch marking at the rear, but 0:07:03.330 --> 0:07:07.039 it was in relatively good condition. The photos of the 0:07:07.060 --> 0:07:11.180 real wreckage are horrific, with both axles bent a different way, 0:07:11.500 --> 0:07:14.660 the back end nearly torn off, and the aluminum along 0:07:14.700 --> 0:07:19.120 the driver's side crumpled and torn. Like, it reminds me 0:07:19.260 --> 0:07:22.670 of the effects in Terminator 2 when T-1000 takes damage, 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.970 if that evokes anything for you. Suffice to say, not 0:07:27.090 --> 0:07:32.429 everyone believed Olive Barris' tales. In some ways, these obvious 0:07:32.530 --> 0:07:36.800 myths make the car's real story even more mysterious. no 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.690 one knows exactly what did happen to the rest of 0:07:39.750 --> 0:07:43.750 Little Bastard's remains. Collectors have been on the hunt this 0:07:43.850 --> 0:07:47.750 whole time, and in late 2015, it looked like the 0:07:47.810 --> 0:07:51.810 frame might have been found. That's when a man contacted 0:07:51.890 --> 0:07:56.070 Brian Grams, the museum director for Volo Auto Museum in Illinois. 0:07:56.100 --> 0:08:00.900 The museum and separate Volo Auto sales floor have hundreds 0:08:01.020 --> 0:08:04.810 of rare and famous cars. In the early 2000s, the 0:08:04.850 --> 0:08:07.770 museum offered a million dollars to anyone who could produce 0:08:07.910 --> 0:08:12.360 Dean's original 550 Spider. The man who contacted Grams told 0:08:12.420 --> 0:08:14.480 him that when he was six years old, he saw 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.320 his father and some friends hide the Spider's frame in 0:08:17.340 --> 0:08:21.300 a building in Washington state. Grams, thinking they might have 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.260 actually found the real thing, informed the media at the 0:08:24.300 --> 0:08:27.540 time that the details appeared to confirm the story, and 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:31.300 the man passed a polygraph test. It seemed like everything 0:08:31.340 --> 0:08:36.179 was moving forward. Then the story fell off the radar. So, 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.620 for the article this episode is based on, HowStuffWorks talked 0:08:39.700 --> 0:08:43.400 to Grams. He said via email, The burden of proof 0:08:43.420 --> 0:08:45.480 is always on the storyteller to provide me with something 0:08:45.500 --> 0:08:47.559 that could verify their story, and all attempts failed, except 0:08:47.580 --> 0:09:04.300 one that was plausible. A man contacted me stating he 0:09:04.340 --> 0:09:06.700 was a kid and witnessed his dad, Barris, and the 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.040 other men hide the car in a false wall in 0:09:09.059 --> 0:09:11.870 a Washington State building, and he had forgotten about it 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.550 until recently. A scar on his hand supposedly triggered the memory, 0:09:15.870 --> 0:09:20.790 stating the cut was from the car. But Graham says 0:09:20.850 --> 0:09:23.840 that the man couldn't secure the spider, and then further 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.760 investigations determined that the supposed building was no longer standing. 0:09:28.860 --> 0:09:31.880 Graham said, If it was true, either the car got 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.330 demoed with the building and ended up in the landfill, 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:39.770 or it was discovered and kept secret. Still, Grams has 0:09:39.850 --> 0:09:42.890 a more pragmatic perspective on the car and its alleged 0:09:42.950 --> 0:09:46.990 curse than many other collectors. He said, As far as 0:09:47.010 --> 0:09:50.200 the legend goes, I have heard stories, but I'm far 0:09:50.260 --> 0:09:52.960 from an expert on the legend. The legend of the 0:09:53.020 --> 0:09:55.380 curse isn't what drew me to the car. It was 0:09:55.440 --> 0:10:00.939 the mystery of the disappearance. There is one known remaining 0:10:01.020 --> 0:10:04.260 part of Little Bastard, a transaxle that was discovered in 0:10:04.300 --> 0:10:09.900 Massachusetts in March of 2020. After McHenry's death back in 1956, 0:10:09.900 --> 0:10:12.719 his widow sold off his collection of parts to other 0:10:12.780 --> 0:10:15.920 racers and car collectors, which is how the infamous parts 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.860 ended up in different parts of the country. That transaxle, 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.760 for example, was stored under a porch for a decade, 0:10:23.059 --> 0:10:25.540 then in a crate for another three decades, before it 0:10:25.580 --> 0:10:30.790 was sold at auction online in 2021 for $ 387, 000. The 0:10:32.090 --> 0:10:35.910 winning bid was placed by paranormalist and TV personality Zach 0:10:35.950 --> 0:10:39.590 Bagan of Zach Bagan's The Haunted Museum in Las Vegas, 0:10:40.030 --> 0:10:45.410 which hosts collections of supposedly paranormal objects. So whether the 0:10:45.460 --> 0:10:48.860 stories about James Dean's cursed car are true or not, 0:10:49.220 --> 0:10:57.500 they're still selling tickets. Today's episode is based on the article, 0:10:57.620 --> 0:11:01.940 Was James Dean's Car Cursed? on HowStuffWorks.com, written by Charisse Threewith. 0:11:02.660 --> 0:11:05.240 BrainStuff is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with 0:11:05.260 --> 0:11:09.199 HowStuffWorks.com and is produced by Tyler Klang. For more shows 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:13.010 from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or 0:11:13.110 --> 0:11:14.730 wherever you listen to your favorite shows.