Little Bastard

Did the death of an icon bring a curse down on the car he was driving?

Fifty-five years ago a young man met his death in a savage car smash out on a lonely strip of Californian interstate. Those first on the scene weren't too sure who was trapped inside the mangled German sports car, but after that lifeless body was pulled from its tomb of crumpled aluminium, they were no longer left in any doubt.

Caked in blood, his head hanging loose from a broken neck, it turned out to be cinema heartthrob James Dean.

As a cultural icon and symbol of young rock 'n' roll America, 24-year-old Dean was the up-and-coming toast of 1950s Hollywood, thanks to his involvement in soon-to-become classics such as East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. Endowed with talent and good looks in equal measure, Dean may have been set for a successful acting career, but what really shook his cage was the high-octane world of automobile racing.

A sport seemingly at odds with somebody who was reputed to be quietly homosexual and inordinately in touch with his feminine side, the man from Fairmount, Indiana, developed a love for speed at an early age when he used to slip out of high school during his lunch breaks to visit a nearby motorcycle shop that stocked all the teen-dream metal of the time.

Though enamoured with the outlaw image associated with these early two-wheelers after which he and his friends lusted, Dean's passion for machinery culminated in a deep love of cars. After graduating in 1949 he couldn't afford anything too flash, but as he established himself on the silver screen and money started streaming in, he could splash out on all sorts of exotica.

One of his first purchases was a red MGTD Roadster but, pretty soon, tormented by an insatiable thirst for speed, Dean fired his ammo at a sleek Porsche 356 Speedster.

A rare and curious sight, back when big American cars were de rigueur within the West Coast motoring scene, Dean upped the ante by entering his chrome-licked German sports car in a number of amateur races held on the primitive tracks that pockmarked Southern California at the time.

Many were quick to slag him off for his lack of experience, but he soon showed a natural aptitude behind the wheel and managed to rack three victories in his first five outings.

This may have earned him respect and kudos among other drivers, but the suits over at Warner Bros were not impressed. A dangerous environment at the best of times - Dean destroyed his engine after crashing into a hay bale - the studio banned him from competing while he was involved in the making of George Stevens's epic Giant.

Dean was anything but discouraged by this contractual bureaucracy. The morning after Giant wrapped, he hit the road to Salinas, California, in his brand new Porsche 550 Spyder; a race-bred supercar that made his Speedster look like a wobbly old wagon.

Low slung and powerful, the purpose-built Spyder may have been the steely embodiment of nearly all Dean's trackside aspirations, but to most of his friends and close Hollywood associates, its sculpted flanks touched on something much more sinister.

Indeed, many thought it was too much machine for the rookie to handle. Bruce Kessler, a former racing driver and friend of Dean's, commented in a 2005 National Geographic television documentary: "Jimmy had the means to buy a car that most people could not buy, and most people would not buy until they were a little bit more experienced."

Dean failed to heed any warnings and arrived to collect his new silver sports car from Competition Motors in Los Angeles on September 30 1955. Originally he and his mechanic, Rolf Wütherich, were going to trailer the Spyder - nicknamed "Little Bastard" to honour its owner's anti-establishment image - up to Salinas for its debut race, but at the last minute Dean decided otherwise. Partnering up for the 560km trek, he and Wütherich left the LA city limits at around 2.30pm and continued north on a high-velocity blast through the back roads of Kern County. Dean took advantage of the long stretches of rural highway and reportedly hit speeds in the region of 200km/h to help break in his car's engine. Despite being stopped and fined by a lone highway patrolman, Otie Hunter, at 3.30pm, the drive was uneventful, with Dean and Wütherich only stopping once at a popular roadside diner sometime around 5pm to fill up with fuel, sandwiches and a few ice-cold sodas. With the Californian sun setting, they left the diner and made tracks for their final destination. They would never reach it.

For at 5.45pm, just before the intersection where Route 466 forked into Route 41, Dean and Wütherich would slam head on into a comparatively massive 1950 Ford Custom Tudor Coupé driven by 23-year-old Donald Turnupseed, a California Polytechnic student.

Turnupseed claimed he failed to see the diminutive 550 Spyder hustling along the road in front of him and consequently made a left turn right into their path.

Travelling at some speed, Dean was unable to avoid the inevitable and smashed into the Ford with a force that killed him on the spot. His last known words, according to Wütherich who survived the impact, albeit with 20 broken bones, were: "That guy's got to see us, he's got to stop."

He didn't, and Dean's name was inked into the annuls of Hollywood's tragic icons.

Robbing a man of what was clearly going to be a star-studded movie career, considering the posthumous success of Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, many claim that Dean's death also spawned something much darker: a curse. For ever since that day when steel met steel under a twilight sky, his Porsche 550 Spyder has been linked to a host of mysterious, sometimes ominous, events.

Though probably best taken with a pinch of salt, the so-called "curse of Little Bastard" can be traced back to 1956 when a doctor named Troy McHenry died after hitting a tree during a race in Pomona. His car was apparently fitted with parts salvaged from Dean's ill-fated machine. A similar coincidence, though this time not fatal, happened to another speed-loving doctor named William Eschrid in the very same race after his Little Bastard-equipped Lotus went out of control while flying around the circuit.

But perhaps even weirder are the claims associated with the crumpled body of Dean's Spyder. Renowned Hollywood car customiser, George Barris, who purchased the wreck sometime after Dean's passing to display at National Safety Council road shows, speaks of the how the car slipped off its dolly rig and crushed one of his attendants' legs. Barris also admits that once, before a show, the warehouse in which Little Bastard was being stored caught fire and burnt down. Dean's car survived the blaze.

Today nobody actually knows what has happened to this Porsche, as it disappeared, according to Barris, while being transported from Florida back to his shop in California.

Cursed or not, the history of Little Bastard is a compelling saga that has helped turn it into perhaps the most sought after car built in the 20th century; one that's every bit as intriguing, mysterious and tragic as that of its late owner, James Byron Dean.