Car legends
Cursed Cars: What Is True and What Is Legend
Archduke Franz Ferdinand's car and James Dean's Porsche: what is backed by documents and what was invented later.
Oct 31, 2026 · 3 min read · Autopapyrus
Every Halloween people remember "cursed" cars. The two best known are the open car of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in which he was killed in Sarajevo, and James Dean's silver Porsche. Both are surrounded by legends, so we went through what is backed by documents and what was invented later.
In short
| Car | What is certain | What remains legend |
|---|---|---|
| The archduke's Gräf & Stift | 28 June 1914, Sarajevo: Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were killed in it. Today it stands in the Vienna Museum of Military History | "Fifteen owners, each struck by misfortune": no documents |
| James Dean's Porsche 550 Spyder | 30 September 1955, California: Dean died in a crash at 24. He had bought the car nine days earlier. The driver of the other car and Dean's mechanic survived | "The wreckage brings misfortune", "it vanished from a sealed railway car": no reliable sources |
The archduke's car
On 28 June 1914 an open Gräf & Stift drove down a street in Sarajevo. In it sat the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife Sophie. They were killed that day, and a month later the First World War began. The car ended up in photographs in school textbooks.
Franz Ferdinand and Sophie leaving the Sarajevo town hall. Photo by Walter Tausch, 1914, public domain (Wikimedia Commons).
Today the car stands in the Vienna Museum of Military History, and you can see it in person.
The car in the museum. Photo by Hubertl, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons).
The legend of fifteen owners
Over time a story appeared: the car supposedly had fifteen owners, and each was struck by misfortune. Nobody has shown documents that confirm it. The earliest such tales appeared many decades after 1914. Even the year the car was built and its registration differ between sources, so we do not name them.
There is also a neat detail: the number plate. It reads A III 118, and written as a date that gives 11.11.18, the day of the armistice that ended the First World War. Whether it is a coincidence, historians argue.
James Dean's Porsche
On 30 September 1955 the actor James Dean died in a crash in California. He was 24. He was driving a Porsche 550 Spyder that he had named Little Bastard. He had bought the car only nine days before the crash.
At an intersection another car, a Ford, turned across his path. The Ford's driver and the mechanic sitting next to Dean survived. This is documented.
Memorial to James Dean. Public domain (Wikimedia Commons). Other photos in the video show Porsche 550s of the same type, not Dean's own car.
What in this story is legend
The rest is legend again: that the wreckage brought misfortune to everyone who touched it, and that the car vanished from a sealed railway car. These stories have no reliable sources.
Bottom line
The crashes were real, and no curses have been proven. But the stories have lived for decades and are retold every Halloween. Which car do you think is the creepiest? Tell us in the comments under the video and we will cover it next time.
Photos: Wikimedia Commons: Walter Tausch (public domain), Hubertl (CC BY-SA 4.0), Lielais Rolands (CC BY-SA 3.0), Sicnag (CC BY 2.0), Lothar Spurzem (CC BY-SA 2.0 DE), Alexander Migl (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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