Little BastardPorsche 550 Spyder · Ruritania

In the autumn of 1955 James Dean was twenty-four, the star of East of Eden, with Rebel Without a Cause about to open. He had caught the racing bug, and on 21 September he traded his Porsche 356 Speedster at Competition Motors in Hollywood for something altogether more serious: a brand-new Porsche 550 Spyder, chassis number 0055 — a small, light, mid-engined car built to race.

The custom painter Dean Jeffries made it his. He added the race number 130 to the bonnet, doors and tail, crimson flashes over the rear wheel arches, and the name “Little Bastard” across the tail beneath the engine vents. Accounts differ on where the name came from — a nickname from the stunt driver Bill Hickman, some say, or Dean's reply to studio boss Jack Warner.

On 30 September Dean set out from Hollywood to drive the Spyder to a race meeting at Salinas, with his German Porsche mechanic Rolf Wütherich beside him and friends following in a station wagon towing the car's trailer. Near Bakersfield the Highway Patrol stopped him and wrote him a speeding ticket.

At about a quarter to six that evening, near the village of Cholame where Routes 466 and 41 meet, a 1950 Ford coming the other way turned left across the Spyder's path. The two cars met almost head-on, and the little Porsche was thrown into a roadside gully. James Dean died of his injuries. Wütherich was thrown clear and badly hurt, but survived; the young driver of the Ford was only slightly injured.

The wreck was written off. Its engine and running gear went into another racing car, and the crumpled body passed to the customiser George Barris, who toured it at road-safety shows — and helped grow the legend that the car was cursed. In 1960 the remains disappeared while being moved, and they have never been found.