James Dean’s Missing 550 Spyder May Be Behind a Wall in Washington

By Adam Pockross - November 17, 2015

James-dean-last-photo-porsche

One of the most infamous Porsches in history, James Dean’s mangled 550 Spyder, has been missing since 1960. Now, thanks to some impressive mind shrinking, it may have been found. But the car’s actual location is just one of the Porsche’s many mysteries yet to be solved.

Here’s what we know: In 1955, the 24-year-old actor was driving the Spyder, aka “Little Bastard,” to a race in Salinas, California. Unfortunately, Dean never made it; he was killed, forever young, after colliding head-on with a Ford Tudor.

After Dean’s insurance company wrote the car off, it was sold to Dr. William F. Eschrich for $1,092. The good doctor removed the drive train and components, then sold off the rest to the creator of the Batmobile, George Barris, the legendary “King of the Kustomizers” who recently passed away at the age of 89.

After taking possession of the car’s remains, Barris showed it around the country for a while, ostensibly to promote highway safety. But in 1960, the car supposedly disappeared while being transported from a show in Miami back to Barris’s shop in Los Angeles.

james dean porsche 550 spyder

And it remained missing. Until now, perhaps, some 55-years later. This is where the story gets even stranger.

Washington resident Shawn Reilly was recently undergoing some “psychological counseling,” according to Fox Sports. Reilly was asked about a cut on his finger, but couldn’t remember where it came from, until therapy allowed him to recover the memory.

Now, we don’t know why Reilly needed therapy in the first place, at least not from the Fox report, but here’s what his memory has to do with all this Dean/Barris business:

“According to his lawyer, Reilly recalled that his father, a carpenter, had brought him along on a job in 1974, when he was 6 years old. At a building that still exists, they met up with several men who wanted a wrecked sports car, which could have been the Porsche, hidden behind a wall. Reilly now remembers that he cut his finger on the car. He also thinks one of the men who were there may have been George Barris.”

Whether the wrecked sports car is or isn’t the Spyder in question may remain a mystery for a while longer, as there are many parties who are claiming ownership of the actual car at this point, and a lot of that has to get sorted out before the excavation begins.