James Dean's Porsche

As far as I know it was never found, but the motor was ????

My dad was a policeman in a town a hundred miles away from where he died, and went to the scene... according to my mom, I don't remember it. My family was also friends with John Steinbeck and Clark Gable, THAT I remember, especially Gable.

 

I read this:
http://www.hallowfreaks.com/cursed.html
Weird stuff probley in a private collection never to be seen again
Or maybe pulled down to hell for the devil to drive

 

...there's a song there.....

 

I had read somewhere that there are something like three cars in existance all claiming to be the original rebuilt from various recovered parts.

 

Just ask Jerry Seinfelds TV mom. You can bet that was discussed during filming breaks given Jerry's penchant.

 

How can the mystery ever be solved with so much doubletalk and bogus information? The Wikipedia info said that the last time the car was seen, it was loaded aboard a truck heading for Chuck Barris's garage. The hallowfreaks.com site said that the car disappeared after being crated and loaded aboard a boxcar.
Anybody know the REAL scoop on the car's last sighting? Or did Bigfoot steal the car in 1959, drive it aboard a time traveling UFO, and swing by Graceland in 1977 to pick up Elvis?

 

Here's another interesting aspect of the lost James Dean 500 spyder. WHO actually owns the car TODAY? True, it may have been missing for nearly 50 years. But Chuck Barris owned the car when it was stolen/disappeared. And unless he had the battered hulk insured against theft (highly doubtful), then he STILL owns the car. Therefore, there is little incentive to spend any time, effort, or money to track down the car. IF you ever found it, Chuck Barris or his agents would merely say "Thanks" and take the car. But this ASSUMES that Barris actually reported the car AS being stolen. Does anybody know if Barris actually ever filled an official stolen vehicle report on the car? And this brings about another interesting possibility: Suppose one were to walk up to Chuck Barris or his agents and offer to BUY the missing car for $100,000? Does he still have the title to the car? COULD he actually sell the car to another person even though it hasn't been seen in nearly 50 years, and therefore provided some incentive for the new titleholder to spend the money in an attempt to locate the car? If he IS still the legal owner, one would think that he COULD sell the car, even though it is still missing. Of course if an open ended official police theft report is still in existance for the car, is it legal to SELL a car that you own AFTER it has been reported stolen?
The legal quandries are pretty extensive.

 

Anyone have the VIn # do the carfax thing and see what it says

 

Sorry.

CarFax requires VIN# from 1981 forward (17 numbers long). Early cars have short VIN #'s.

 

Must have been an inside job with somebody at the railroad. You don't just run up and grab an entire crated car and toss it in your truck and drive off with it. (Even though it was pretty much just a crushed shell by that time.)

 

Show the other day ago set out very detailed CSI type recreation (forensics)that showed there was no way Dean was driving. With accident scene photography, body position and other things it was determined through this "show" that Dean was a passenger and witnesses stated he was not behind the wheel

who knows...who cares, right.

 

I've heard the same thing... I think the car was angry that Dean let someone else drive it... The car wanted to be with no one but Dean and everyone who touched it besides Dean was effected...

 

Are you a Lawyer ?

If you are, and Denny Crane went up against you, he'd lose his first case ever.

 

Kinda like a crashed Enzo on the PCH a few months ago ?

 

Those who have studied the incident extensively will recall that there WERE photographs taken of Dean's body in the mangled wreckage, but those photos have never publically surfaced. (that I know of.) One of the guys following him that day was a photographer and took photos after the crash. Supposedly he took more photographs than have ever been shown. Too gruesome.
http://www.jamesdeanindeath.com/jamesdeanindeath_Roth.html

http://www.jamesdeanindeath.com/jamesdeanindeath_Hickman.html

More photos of the car.
http://www.jamesdeanindeath.com/mysteries.html

 

From memory it's chassis #550-055. 054 lives in Melbourne as part of the Lindsey Fox car collection. It was featured in Excellence magazine last year. Barris offered a US$1mil reward for the remains of the car last year also.

 

There's a Dietrich joke in there somewhere.

 

The grandson of the pathologist that performed the autopsy on Dean is a mechanic in a Ferrari dealer in the US and used to work for me. The investigation was intensive and I don't believe there was ever a question as to who was driving.

Also he was not considered a very good race driver by his contemporaries.

 

Wow that car it trashed never knew it was that bad

 

Is this some sort of controversy? As I recall from reading the newspaper clippings on the walls of the little restaurant in Cholame, they reported at the time that Dean was not driving. His mechanic was driving.

I have also always heard that the driver survived because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt but Dean died with a seat belt (racing harness?) on. This has not been publicized for obvious reasons.