The urban legend behind the 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder that James Dean drove on the day of his tragically fatal accident has since obtained ghost story status. Mostly because nobody knows where the remains of the car ended up, it was last reported being transported yet neither car, truck, nor driver were never seen again. Also due to the rumors of people getting seriously injured or killed when in contact with the car. The phrase, “If the car could talk…”, is what I used when I wrote this short story. What if the Spyder was here to tell its story? The world may never know the truth, but I wanted to take a crack at it. This is the story behind the mystery of the Little Bastard, told by the speed demon that took America’s Rebel.

Some say I was cursed, others say I was designed by the devil himself, but most have never seen me. My name is Porsche 550 Spyder and I was born in 1955. My first owner used to call me “The Little Bastard.” He was a young man, tall and blonde with movie star looks. Apparently he was a Hollywood big shot, least that’s what I heard from the people at the speed shop when they dressed me with pinstripes and race numbers. I remember the day he saw me in the showroom floor; his eyes were fixed in a trance when he saw my gorgeous curves. He had a friend with him that day, but I did not care for him because he kept telling my owner that if he drove me, he would be found dead in a week. Dean is what they used to call him- James Dean- and I was the last car he ever drove.

It was a beautiful day, and Dean was handling me well as we ripped through the two lane blacktop. Up ahead I could see a Ford, one of those mutants called “Hotrods” being driven by an even younger man coming in the opposite direction. I saw that he was trying to cross into our lane so he could turn around, but i knew that I would reach him in no time at the speed I was running. I never knew if Dean, or his friend in the passenger seat, saw it coming. Maybe he didn’t see the Ford. Maybe it was too late for him to react when he realized I wouldn’t engage my brakes. What I do know is that I freight trained that Ford dead center in its ugly face. I felt no pain, just the chill of my drive train beginning to cool down, but the same could not be said about my owner. I heard his last breath escape from what was left of his body as his friend, Bill Hickman, was holding him in his arms.

I was a complete wreck, but I was far from death, the same couldn’t be said for my two passengers. George Barris, the man who painted me, purchased what was left of me for a hefty sum of $2,500. When I arrived at his shop, one of his mechanics was looking at me in an ugly way that I didn’t care for at all. I became enraged and began to rock’n roll until I slipped off the trailer that was carrying me. I threw myself on that mechanic, breaking his leg. That would teach him for looking at me ugly.

Barris gave me a once over and, instead of fixing me, he took away my engine and drivetrain! I was a fine piece of German engineering, a rare work of art, and he treated me like some parts car at a junkyard? I was furious and determined that whatever piece of me was sold, I would go along for the ride.

My parts were sold to two racers who used them on their own race cars. I felt like a prostitute. As it turned out, the two racers ended up competing against each other and, wouldn’t you know it, they both had accidents. One of them mysteriously lost control and flew off the track, hitting a tree, which killed him instantly. As for the other, he escaped the devil’s hearse, but not before I maimed him when his car suddenly locked up on a turn and sent him off the track in a rollover.

Barris then sold my only two good tires to some kid who was going to use them on his daily driver. He would later be watching his life flash before his eyes when both my tires blew out simultaneously running him off the road.

Dean must have been really famous because one night, two people broke into the garage to try and steal yet more parts off me. One tried to steal my steering wheel and ended up tearing open his arm when he tripped and cut himself on one of my jagged fenders. The other stole my blood stained seats but I managed to tag him with a fender as well.

Poor Barris was feeling guilty of all these “accidents,” but when the California State Police showed up asking to borrow me for some road safety exhibit he just sent me away, like a common Chevy. The nerve of him! With all that had been taken away from me, I was reduced to a twisted shell of a once prime example of automotive genius. The thought of my hideous appearance boiled in me like an overheated radiator as I sat in the impound garage. My sheet metal began to twist and bend with anger as I sat there staring at a gas can across the room, each passing moment becoming more and more engulfed with rage. I stared at that gas can until it too began to dent and twist, and within minutes the whole garage was bathed in a blaze of hell fire. I sat there through the night as everything around me melted into the earth with a sizzle and a bubble. I was the only survivor, the flames never touched me. I guess fire can’t burn what has been already dammed.

The State Police must have wanted revenge when they put me up on a stage at some high school so everyone could see my disfigurement and mock me for being an example of highway danger. I reached my breaking point when a teenager came up and began to blame me for my owner’s death. I rock’n rolled myself loose and fell on him, breaking his hip.

I wish I could be restored and be driven again. Being transported everywhere makes me jealous; forced to watch all those inferior cars cruise around, and I’m stuck looking like a wreck. My jealously turns to fury and I start to rock’n roll. I feel the truck starting to loose traction as I kept shifting my weight around, and soon the truck jackknifed. As the truck begins to roll, I see the driver being ejected from the cab, and I feel myself letting go of the flatbed and flying across the air straight for him. A familiar sense of satisfaction overwhelms me as I feel his bones crush beneath my frame and a cooling sensation as his blood splashes over me like a fresh coat of paint.

I think the state police have grown tired of me. I hear they are sending me back home to Mr. Barris. I will not go back to being treated like a savage yard! My fury reached new heights that day while being transported to Barris and since then nobody has seen me, the flatbed nor the driver. Some say I vanished, other say I was stolen. But I am here to ease your worry, as I am safely back at home with my new owner. He is a strange man, always red in the face and wearing a suit, but we do have a vast similarity in personality, and he has restored me to my original perfection. He even changed my name from the “Little Bastard” to the “Little Devil”.