A Rolls-Royce with links to James Dean is cheaper than his rear axle

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You PreWarCar folk may have missed it, but PostWar country was all shook up last week when the rear axle that supposedly came from James Dean’s crashed Porsche 550 Spyder was sold. The hunk of metal, presented in a display, was offered by a well-known online auctioneer and caused a storm of thousands of comments and reports and eventually sold for a whopping $382,000.

It was hoped that the buyer would be a serious collector with the intent to reunite all the remaining pieces of Dean’s Porsche and resurrect these into an ‘evocation’. But that’s not going to happen. The axle of the supposedly haunted car was bought by the owner of ‘The Haunted Museum’ in Nevada, who will display it there.

1920 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Pall Mall Tourer by Merrimac

It makes the 1920 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost that will be sold by RM Sotheby’s on the 19th of this month almost seem like a bargain. The car is estimated to sell at 175,000 to 220,000 Swiss francs ($193,000 to $243,000), while its associations with Dean are unmistakably strong. The British-built Silver Ghost was owned from 1931 to 1969 by film production company Warner Brothers and was seen in a number of movies, most notably in the classic 1956 picture ‘Giant’, featuring Dean in his last leading role before his death. As a matter of fact, he died a week after filming for Giant had been finished. The Silver Ghost, with Dean seated casually in it, even featured prominently on Giant’s film poster. That may not make it a suitable display item for a haunted museum, but it does make it a truly wonderful piece of film memorabilia. Apart from being a beautiful and usable car, that is.

Words by Jeroen Booij. Pictures by Dirk de Jager ©2021 Courtesy of RM Sotheby's. Warner Brothers.

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