6/13/2023 0 Comments Porsche 550 spyder![]() ![]() The rebel with the wild heart dies on the way to the hospital. Shortly before 6 p.m., the 550 Spyder with the starting number 130 painted on it and the nickname “Little Bastard” reaches the fateful junction where Highway 41 splits off to Fresno. And this compact driving machine needs some exercise before its big day out. After all, Dean has just exchanged his 356 Speedster a few days ago for the car. The 515 kilometers from Hollywood to Salinas, taking a looping route up the Central Valley to Bakersfield, then west to Route 101, would be just the right amount of road dust and headwind to prepare the mid-engine sports car for a weekend of racing. Wütherich has recommended that Dean carefully break in the 550 Spyder, which is just a few days old, before its first race. Sixty years later, his legend lives on.ĭean is on the way to the racetrack in Salinas, with the German mechanic Rolf Wütherich huddled against the hissing headwind in the passenger seat of the purist Spyder. And then there is this small silver Porsche 550 Spyder zooming down from the hills like a UFO, with a hoarsely panting four-cylinder boxer engine, a fabulous 81 kW (110 hp), a featherweight 550 kilos (1,212 lbs.), and a peak speed of nearly 230 km/h (143 mph) when the gas pedal is floored. Only a few road cruisers are making their way through the valley below like shiny bumps of chrome and steel. On September 30, he is full of vitality and high spirits as he sets off on a trip to Salinas.Ĭalifornia State Route 46 tumbles down into the valley of Cholame Creek. The studios are fighting over him, and his agent is already negotiating for substantially higher fees. Dean finds himself in this deeply emotional anti-mainstream car-and reali-zes on some level in September of 1955 that he has made his breakthrough in the film bu-siness. The brand is young the cars are spartan, authentic, and uncompromis-ingly sporty. The studios are fighting over himīy the time Dean trades in his Porsche 356 for a considerably faster 550 Spyder in Sep-tember of 1955, it has become a status symbol for individualists in the United States to possess a Porsche. The unconventional young fellow with a melancholy look and rough manners serves as an outstanding projection screen for the youth of the 1950s, between the Korean War and rock ’n’ roll. It is this frailness under an ever-so-thin layer of coolness that enables him to become a hero to his young audience. His journey out of darkness becomes a struggle against an overwhelming magnitude of teenage angst. So Dean is sent from Southern California to the puritanical household of his aunt-misunderstood, wounded, abandoned. When he is nine, his beloved mother dies of cancer and his unfeeling father never manages to reach this boy, who is shattered to the core by his mother’s death. His restlessness and thirst for life have deep-seated roots. Although he is forbidden from engaging in “dangerous sports,” he joins the vibrant West Coast racing scene and enters his Porsche 356 Speedster successfully in local contests. The young actor runs riot he lives fast, unyieldingly, obstinately. They try to domesticate the wild young man, but he confronts the well-mannered mainstream movie business with resistance, skepticism, and even condescension. Frailness under an ever-so-thin layer of coolnessĪt this point the big Hollywood studios only realize that an elemental force is in their midst. Dean places his own painful stamp on his roles. ![]() This trait, which can hardly be concealed, marks the way he acts. Dean is a con-flicted character who oscillates between aggressive intensity and cold equanimity he is cynical and vulnerable at once. The famous author him-self describes James Dean as the ideal actor for the filming of East of Eden. With his defiant and simultaneously passionate and reserved demeanor, he reminds direc-tor Elia Kazan of John Steinbeck’s fictional character Caleb Trask. Now, in 1955, the 24-year-old, who grew up in Indiana, has succeeded in landing his first leading roles in Hollywood movies. Dean first had to fight for his place in life his brief acting career on Broadway in New York came only after some hungry years of training. They are fast and beautiful, emotional and pragmatic-these unpretentious, intense Porsches suit the nonconformist lifestyle of the young actor. The most streamlined sports cars from Stuttgart are the ones that hold a special fascination for James Dean. ![]()
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