The wrecked remains of James Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder “Little Bastard” are stored in the Paso Robles, California, garage of a repair facility. On the evening of September 30, 1955, the 24-year-old movie star was killed after his car collided with a student’s car at a crossroads 28 miles east of Paso Robles.
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James Dean perishes in a car crash.
Actor James Dean, 24, is murdered in Cholame, California, at 5:45 PM on September 30, 1955, when the Porsche he is operating collides with a Ford Tudor car at an intersection. While Dean’s passenger, German Porsche mechanic Rolf Wutherich, suffered severe injuries but lived, the second car’s driver, 23-year-old California Polytechnic State University student Donald Turnupseed, was mainly unharmed but left bewildered. Only one of Dean’s films, “East of Eden,” had been released at the time of his passing; “Rebel Without a Cause” and “Giant” came out soon after; however, he was on the verge of celebrity when he died, and the crash cemented his place in history.
James Dean loved racing automobiles, and he was actually traveling to a race in Salinas, 90 miles south of San Francisco, in his brand-new, $7000 Porsche Spyder convertible. Witnesses insisted that Dean wasn’t speeding at the time of the collision because Turnupseed had made a left turn directly into the path of the Spyder. However, some people have noted that Dean must have been traveling at an alarmingly high speed because he had received a speeding ticket in Bakersfield, 84 miles away from the crash site, at 3:30 p.m. and had stopped at a diner for a Coke. This indicated that he had traveled a No matter how fast the Porsche was traveling, Turnupseed would not have been able to notice it coming due to the advancing dusk and the sun’s glare.
There is a rumor that Dean’s vehicle, the Little Bastard, was cursed. After the collision, a nearby mechanic’s legs were crushed as the car rolled off the back of a truck. Later, after a used-car dealer sold its components to buyers across the nation, the odd occurrences increased: the car’s engine, transmission, and tires were all installed in vehicles that were later involved in fatal collisions, and a truck transporting the Spyder’s chassis to a highway-safety exhibition skidded off the road, killing its driver. The car’s wreckage disappeared from the scene of the collision and hasn’t been seen again.
Wutherich attempted suicide twice in the 1960s due to ongoing guilt over the vehicle tragedy. In a failed murder-suicide attempt in 1967, he stabbed his wife 14 times with a kitchen knife. Wutherich passed away in an alcohol-related car accident in 1981. Turnupseed passed away in 1995 from lung cancer.
Brant Lerner
The TMZ website’s headline, “James Dean ‘Cursed’ Transaxle Sells for $400K,” had me do a double take and think, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” However, the reason for the sale at the Bring a Trailer online auction last month is even stranger.
Dean is still a source of endless intrigue more than 50 years after his passing at the age of 24 in 1955. Even though he only produced three films before his death in a vehicle accident, Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden, and Giant, moviegoers are aware that he was already a blazing sensation. Gearheads emphasize the fact that Dean was a passionate club racer who passed away while operating a brand-new Porsche 550 Spyder on the way to a sports car race.
The late George Barris, the King of the Kustomizers, doggedly propagated the fantastical idea that Dean’s 550 was cursed, which is the main reason the story has gained a cult following and why the transaxle went for such an exorbitant figure.
In his memoir, Barris stated that there was “something weird about that specific car… a sense, ill vibrations, an aura.” The disaster that car touched all it came into contact with. Play ominous music.
In a Porsche 356 Super Speedster that Dean personally drove to the track in March 1955, Dean won his first-ever novice race at Palm Springs and placed second in the main event the following day. He finished third overall and first in his class in Bakersfield five weeks later. He had a blown engine and DNF’d at Santa Barbara later in the month. Even so, it appeared to be a promising beginning for a budding racer.
The author of the authoritative book James Dean On the Road to Salinas, Lee Raskin, disputes this. Raskin claims that James Dean was a bit of a daredevil as a child and had no fear of anything. “Did he drive well? No. First of all, he had severe myopia, which may help to explain why he collided with metal in every race he participated in. Second, in my opinion, he never used the brake.”
Like most racers on the planet, Dean was certain he needed a quicker vehicle. The four-cam rocket ship that would lead Porsche to small-bore supremacy was the 550 Spyder, so he exchanged the Speedster and $3,800 in cash for it. He also recruited pinstriping guru Dean Jeffries to spray-paint the moniker “Little Bastard” on the rear decklid.
After finishing the Giant movie, Dean signed up for a minor league road race in Salinas, which is located about 300 miles north of Los Angeles. Rolf Wutherich, a Porsche factory mechanic, proposed that they drive the car to Salinas to break in the Type 547 engine, which is known for being extremely sensitive. Dean had exercised the 550 on Mulholland Boulevard, wrinkling the aluminum bodywork by sideswiping a trash can. They were followed by Dean’s pal Bill Hickman, who would go on to become a footnote famous as a stunt driver in Bullitt and The French Connection, who was hauling an open trailer in a station wagon.
Has the Long-Missing Porsche Spyder of James Dean’s Mystery Been Solved?
One of the most enduringly intriguing mysteries surrounding vintage cars may soon be explained.
On September 30, 1955, while driving along Route 466 near Cholame with a buddy, legendary actor James Dean collided head-on with a 1950 Ford Tudor coupe being operated by 23-year-old college student Donald Turnipseed. Dean’s car was flipped into the air due to the impact’s extreme velocity. Dean was trapped inside with a fractured neck when it crashed back onto its wheels in a gully. The rising celebrity passed away while being taken to the hospital.
Dean’s Porsche, known as “Little Bastard,” had been modified by Dean Jeffries, a great pinstriper, and George Barris, the renowned creator of the Batmobile and the Munster Koach. Barris’ shop was right next to Jeffries’. Barris bought the car’s wreckage after the collision and frequently lends it to the California Highway Patrol for use in exhibits meant to deter speeding. Later, he sold the engine, the chassis, and the two remaining tires to a young New Yorker who was also an avid racer. The Little Bastard engine and chassis were used in the cars that the two doctors raced on October 21, 1956. One lost control and crashed into a tree, instantly killing the driver. Additionally, it was alleged that the young New Yorker’s car’s two tires burst simultaneously, sending the vehicle careening into a ditch.
But Little Bastard’s unexplained abduction from a locked container while being shipped from Miami to Los Angeles in 1960 was the most puzzling turn of events. In 2005, Chicago’s Volo Auto Museum made a public offer to purchase the automobile from whoever owned it for $1 million as part of an exhibition commemorating Dean’s passing on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Since then, all but one of the advice have been dead ends.
A contact was made to the museum a few months ago from a guy in Whatcom County, Washington, who claimed to have seen the car being concealed behind a building’s fake wall when he was a young boy in the 1960s. Officials at the museum requested that the man undergo a polygraph test to ensure that they weren’t being sent phantom chasing. He did, and he succeeded brilliantly.
While attorneys sort out all the relevant issues, authorities are keeping the man’s identity and that of the building where Dean’s fabled automobile is purportedly hidden a secret. After more than 60 years since the horrific death of its illustrious owner, Little Bastard’s destiny may finally be revealed to the public if a deal can be reached.
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A component from James Dean’s 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder sold for $382,000 to someone.
James Dean died driving a 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder, but the car’s 4-speed transaxle is still in existence and was recently sold for $382,000 on Bring a Trailer. The price was higher than what Porsche charged for its most recent 911 Speedster, yes.
If you’re not familiar with the tale, Dean was a passionate amateur racer who bought the 550 Spyder to participate in SCCA competitions. However, Dean passed away on September 30, 1955, just a few days after purchasing the Porsche, in a crash close to Salinas, California.
According to the listing, Dean’s insurance company supposedly sold the wreck to another California racer; after that, the transaxle was taken out of the vehicle and stored for many years.
The transaxle was purchased by the present owner in March 2020, and it is currently set up on a movable display platform. In pictures, it appears to be very complete; there are drum brakes, a starter motor, and even undamaged CV-joint boots. The body of Dean’s 550 Spyder has been thought to be missing for many years, thus this is probably the greatest portion that is still present.
According to the advertisement, this transaxle is the one from Dean’s automobile since it has a Volkswagen serial number (the transaxle was a recycled VW Beetle unit) stamped into the split magnesium box. In the transaction was documentation proving that the serial number matches the one on the transaxle that was put in Dean’s automobile.
Who would spend more than $300,000 on a fragment of a deceased celebrity’s car? Zak Bagans, who stars on the Travel Channel series “Ghost Adventures” and owns The Haunted Museum in Las Vegas, is likely the successful bidder. So this grisly artifact might soon be on exhibit for the whole public.
Death of James Dean
Even though he had been working successfully as an actor throughout his twenties, James Dean had never given up his other long-time hobby: racing cars. Dean ran in the Palm Springs and Santa Barbara Road Races the same year as East of Eden made its debut. A new Porsche Spyder, which he dubbed “Little Bastard” and intended to race in the Salinas Road Race in California, was another acquisition he had made.
When the time came, Dean decided to drive the Porsche himself instead of having it transported to Salinas on a trailer.
Along with his mechanic, Rolf Wutherich, the Hollywood star left for Salinas in Little Bastard on September 30, 1955. Around 3:30 PM, Dean was pulled over for a speeding ticket. At 4:45 PM, he had dinner at a diner before getting back on the road. Dean saw a Ford approaching his vehicle at about 5:45 p.m. as it was getting ready to turn left at the intersection up ahead. The two automobiles crashed head-on after Dean allegedly informed Wutherich, “that guy’s gotta stop, he’ll notice us.”
Before coming to a stop, the Ford was spun out on the highway, but its driver, Donald Turnupseed, 23, managed to escape with just minor wounds.
When the two vehicles collided, the Porsche spun in the air before returning to the ground with a terrible crunch and rolling to the side of the road while James Dean was still inside.
When they saw how horribly mangled the crash had left him, witnesses scrambled to rescue him from the crumpled metal body. Turnupseed was never charged, and witnesses indicate Dean was not speeding despite his prior ticket, therefore it is still unclear why the collision occurred. No matter what happened, James Dean was declared dead as soon as he arrived at Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital shortly after 6 o’clock.