Had James Dean the superstar actor survived a horrific car crash in 1955 he would be 75 years young, or there abouts . . . have I unknowingly shared some common ground down the years with Dean over his choice of wheels . . .
James Dean loved speed — and so do I, I must confess. It seems to go with my part-time job of being a motoring journalist, I suppose. During Dean’s short lifespan of 24 years — before his meteoric career as a film actor came to an abrupt end when he was killed in a fiery car accident — he had managed to experience — as I did — the art of motorcycling via a Triumph Tiger 100 but soon made the logical jump to sports cars when he bought himself a red MG TD Roadster in 1954. (I no longer have motorcycles, but only recently got rid of my red MG TD, but that's another story!)
Alas, for Dean, the MG wasn’t fast enough and being quite a useful club racer, usually finishing in the top five places, decided a Porsche 356 was the car to take him to the top of the winner’s rostrum, and so it was — for a while. The appreciative crowds at Santa Barbara, Palm Springs and Bakersfield — circuits as well known in California as would have been our very own Roy Hesketh, Woodmead and Killarney are to South Africans — loved the good-looking star of “East of Eden,” a film that had set Dean’s acting career alight.
Back to Dean’s motor racing career and again his car was losing out to the opposition . . . it was time to find something really quick this time around. A Lotus 9 racer was seriously considered but the delivery time remained uncertain. A Morgan Plus Four (a car I also owned, but that’s worthy of yet another story) wasn’t rated rapid enough for Dean.
A phone call from a sports car dealer called Competition Motors in Hollywood, and on the advice of his motor mechanic and friend Rolf Wutherich, Dean fell in love with a Porsche 550 Spyder — chassis number 550-0055. This was one of a handful of Porsches earmarked for the American market that year — a car Dean was to own — but never race — just a few days before he met his untimely end.
Because of his yearn for speed, his studio executives had placed a ban on his racing exploits until another blockbuster movie was safely on celluloid — the title of the fim: “Rebel Without a Cause”. If he wasn’t famous already, he certainly was now!
On September 21, 1955 — two weeks before “Rebel Without a Cause” was released to theatres across America Dean took delivery of the $6,090 Spyder — quite a sizeable amount of money for a car back then. Mind you, it easily outperformed the 356 by offering 40 more horses and a top speed of 135 mph. This little car — nicknamed by Dean’s friends “Little Bastard,” seemed, somehow, to have a mind of its own . . .
Just before 6 pm on September 30, Dean and Wucherich in the Porsche Spyder crossed an intersection near the town of Cholame on Route 41 when, on their way to their first race collided with a big, solid Ford Custom coupé . . . well you know the rest.
Amazingly Wucherich and the Ford driver, Donald Turnupseed survived the crash, but not Dean. He was pronounced dead where he lay. The battered aluminium coachwork of the Spyder was past salvaging but many of the mechanical parts were sold on.
Legend has it that parts fitted to other 550s were somehow tainted with death, and it’s reliably documented that at least one race driver, a Dr Troy McHenry, lost his own life just 12 months later when driving his own 550 Spyder, ran into the only tree at the Pomona race circuit. Cause of the accident: a steering component — a part believed bought cheaply from Dean’s wrecked car.
Was this the start of what was to become known as the Cholame Curse? A car enthusiast George Barris, bought what was left of the wreck but the car slipped off the tow truck breaking both his legs while being unloaded. The malevolent Spyder seemed to be evil. When Barris broke the car up for spares he sold two rims and tyres only to learn both tyres had blown simultaneously sending the competitor into a wild spin and missing death by inches.
Barris loaned the wreckage to the California Highway Patrol for a display and later learned the garage where the car was stored had been burned to the ground along with several squad cars . . . but not “Little Bastard!” Many years later in 1983 and 1985 it seems the fans still hadn’t forgotten James Dean. His headstone was twice replaced after mysterious removal. What happened to the car, you might ask. Well, in 1960 another road safety show took place in Miami, Florida.
The remains of the car were loaded onto a tow truck after the event only to disappear en route to Los Angeles. “Little Bastard” was never heard of again.
