JAMES Dean's famous Porsche has a haunting history.
Dean was an American superstar, starring in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden, and Giant.
He received an Academy Award posthumously for his role in East of Eden, becoming the first actor to win the award after their death.
On September 23, 1955, famous actor James Dean bought a Porsche 550 Spyder. Just a week later, he died behind its wheel.
Dean bought the Porsche for $7,000 and brought it to George Barris, a legendary car customizer, to add the iconic 130 across the Porsche's hood and the moniker "Little Bastard" over the grill.
From the moment Dean got the car it had bad omens surrounding it. Alec Guinness, the actor who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy, recalled it looking sinister.
"The sports car looked sinister to me. . .Exhausted, hungry, feeling a little ill-tempered in spite of Dean’s kindness," Guinness wrote in unpublished diaries and letters.
"I heard myself saying in a voice I could hardly recognize as my own: ‘Please never get in it. . . if you get in that car you will be found dead in it by this time next week.'”
Guinness' prediction came true. Around 5:15 pm on September 30, 1955, Dean hit a car turning left at what is speculated to be a speed of 85 mph.
His passenger, Rolf Wütherich, a Porsche mechanic, miraculously was ejected from the vehicle and survived with only scratches. Dean was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
The Porsche was a mangled mess after the accident. "Little Bastard" was nearly bent in half. Still, it was purchased by George Barris for $2,500.
After purchasing the car, it slipped off a trailer and broke the leg of a mechanic. Barris then began selling off parts of the car.
The engine and drivetrain went to Troy McHenry and William Eschrid. They were building their own Porsches and wanted to race them against each other.
With Dean's car parts in their vehicles, Henry lost control and crashed into a tree, killing him instantly.
Eschrid's wheels locked up out of nowhere, causing the car to flip and seriously injuring him.
Barris also sold off two tires from Dean's wreck, which exploded at the same time when driven on another car.
At the same time, Wütherich was suffering from the aftermath of the accident.
He attempted suicide twice due to survivors guilt in the 1960s, stabbed his wife 14 times in 1967 in a failed murder suicide, and then died in a drunk driving accident in 1981.
The continued incidents caused Barris to want to hide the car, but the California Highway Patrol convinced him to lend it out to use as a safety exhibit.
The first exhibition failed after the garage housing the wreck burned down, but the flames didn't harm the car.
The next exhibit went to a local high school, where the car fell off it's display and broke a student's hip.
On its way to another exhibition, George Barkuis was supposedly hauling the car on a flatbed when he got in an accident and was ejected from the vehicle. The Porsche then fell of the truck and killed him.
The eerie events continued until 1960 when "Little Bastard" was being shipped by train to another exhibition in Miami. The event went off without any incidents, but on the way back to Los Angeles, the car vanished.
Dean's haunted Porsche 550 was never seen again.
In the most recent chapter of the haunted Porsche 550, Zak Bagans, a collector of haunted items, spent $382,000 in 2021 on the transaxle from McHenry's wreck.
The transaxle was in Dean's car as well.
It now sits on display at Bagans' The Haunted Museum in Las Vegas, and so far hasn't harmed any visitors.
So far.
