GREEK-BORN STRONGMAN, LEON SAMSON ONCE TOOK ON A BET WITH A GREEK
BUSINESSMAN THAT HE COULD EAT A WHOLE CAR IN FOUR YEARS.
A whole car? Four years? $30,000. Worth taking a bite at.
There are those who say he did it. (No, not the engine). But there are those who say he didn’t finish the job.
In two years (one doctor predicted he would be dead in nine months) he managed to eat the whole outer body of the car (model unknown).
“I cut the steel into small pieces before I swallow it,” he told the Newcastle Sun in 1969.
There are those who say he won the bet. Those who say that had the bet at $20,000.
But the story sort of stops here.
Leon, or Samson as he became known (neither his real, Greek name) came clean, aged, 83. “I moved to America and the car stayed here — it probably rusted somewhere in the bush,” he said. Fortunately he never did get to the engine.
But, listen to this: From aged 22 to 32, he also … Ate 22,000 razor blades and 630 light globes.
A man of steel with a whole lotta appetite.
RIP Samson, died 2017