sorry for being a non-911 posting, but i thought some folks might be interested in the story.
I was at the DMV today registering a Beck Spyder under the SB100 smog exemption rule and sat next to a man who took an interest in my car. He was about 65 - 75 years old. He was also registering a kit car called a Scarab (
www.scarab-motorsports.com) . He seemed to know an awful lot about racing and cars and dropped several names of SoCal racers of the 1950's & 1960's. I brought with me a 550 Spyder "coffee table" book in case I needed to school the DMV on what type of car i was registering.
He relayed a story that he swears was true about his knowledge of James Dean's wrecked 550 Spyder. He said that when he was a young boy in LA, his father raced cars and became friends with several LA area people who also raced. He said that his father knew of a doctor who raced cars and when the doctor heard that Dean had died in a car wreck in his 550 Spyder, the man searched for and later bought the wrecked car.
He said that the man brought it to his large LA area house and kept it under a tarp. This man said that when he was about 10 years old, his father took him to the doctor's house in LA to talk about an upcoming race. While there, the doctor told his father about the wrecked car and the man said that he and his father looked at the wreckage. He said that you could still see blood in the car so his dad didn't let him look too long.
later, he said that the doctor took the engine out and put it into a Lotus race car. He said that one day his dad took him to the track and Dean's mechanic was brought to the track, too. He had been crippled by the wreck but still helped a few of the people who had 550's in the race. Unfortunately a few weeks later, the doctor was killed racing the Lotus with the ex-Dean 550 Spyder motor in it. The man said that it was at this point that a legend began to grow that Dean's car was cursed.
He then said that he heard that the 550 engine was then put into a Cooper frame & body and was called the "Pooper". It was successfully raced in SoCal for a short period.
The funny thing is that as we talked, I pulled out the 550 Spyder book I had and started thumbing through the pages looking at photo's. I'll be damned if the last few pages had photo's of a "Pooper" next to a Spyder at a California race track.
He said that the doctor who bought Dean's wrecked 550 Spyder had a son who was about 7 years old at the time visited the doctor with his dad. He said that he had recently run into him and he asked him whatever became of the Dean wreckage. The doctor's son refused to divulge any information because he feared that word might leak out about the whereabouts of the wreck. Should this happen, Dean fanatics might hunt it down and vandalize it.
The man told me that I may not believe his story, but he swore that it was the God's honest truth.