The "Portus"; a 1955 Lotus MkIX, powered by a 4-cam Porsche engine, MG-TD gearbox, and Austin Healey 100-6 rear end. Built by a doctor in southern CA and successfully raced from the mid-fifties at least into the sixties. It's rumored that Ken Miles once drove it.
Unusual not only in the Porsche engine being mounted up front ... but the engine was from the Porsche 550 in which James Dean was killed.
The insurance company sold the remains of Dean's car as scrap; the doctor bought it, removed the running gear and instruments (which were also used in the "Portus") and ...
"(George) Barris acquired the Porsche after all the Porsche enthusiasts had bought and pilfered everything usable from the car. All Barris got was the body scraps, but that's all he wanted. He did a flim-flam rebuild job so he could parade it around the country for the next several years, in the name of promoting teen traffic safety, or some such alleged profit venture. ... When its novelty finally wore off in favor of more interesting subjects, Barris destroyed what was left (and) created the legend the car disappeared from an enclosed railroad car while en route from Florida to Hollywood, California, then announced a $100,000 reward to anyone who could come up with the car."
The doctor's descendants still have the engine, stored in southern CA, verified by the block number. He had sold the rest of the running gear - transaxle and rear suspension - which changed hands between many racers and collectors over the years, though never installed in any car. The last owner, a collector in MA, auctioned them in 2021 for a reported $382,000 to a museum in Las Vegas.
This also dispels the myth of the curse on Dean's Porsche.