James Dean Crash

[cegerer]

Maybe I'm the only one, but I've never seen the crash photos of Dean's 550 until now - at least, that's what I think these are.

[Eric Mckenna]

Yep,
That is Deans ole 550... man that Aluminum doesn't hold up well in crashes..
How many REAL 1955 550A Spyders are really left in the world..
9 or so..

[Jeroen]

The car had some bad voodoo...
Weird stuff happened to everyone who owned or dealt with it

cheers,

Jeroen

[Sonic dB]

Yes. Those are the pics. the black looking thing by the drivers door was used to cover the body. There actually is another pic that I saw, in which the body is laying in that spot.

I was thinking about taking a road trip up there one day, and check out the spot. Kinda morbid curiosity I suppose.

From what I read, Hwy 46 has been changed since the crash and it doesnt go by the exact intersection anymore.

[Bob's Flat-Six]

Strange how something like this happens and cut's a promising young mans life short or any persons for that matter. If he had been a couple of seconds faster or slower it probably would have never happened ?
God bless James Dean

[pwd72s]

Originally posted by Sonic dB
Yes. Those are the pics. the black looking thing by the drivers door was used to cover the body. There actually is another pic that I saw, in which the body is laying in that spot.

I was thinking about taking a road trip up there one day, and check out the spot. Kinda morbid curiosity I suppose.

From what I read, Hwy 46 has been changed since the crash and it doesnt go by the exact intersection anymore.

Oh yeah, but there is kind of a "country store" near there with a couple of monuments out front. When I drove by, I didn't feel anything unworldly, didn't stop. If every soul who left the planet at an intersection left a memorial? I wonder...how many memorials would there be at every intersection? Be careful out there...

[cstreit]

Yikes... Yeah I believe that car did have some bad Mojo, or so the story goes...

[exc911ence]

Originally posted by Bob's Flat-Six
Strange how something like this happens and cut's a promising young mans life short or any persons for that matter. If he had been a couple of seconds faster or slower it probably would have never happened ?
God bless James Dean

If he had been a couple of seconds faster or slower, I doubt he would have become the legend that he has.

[Zeke]

What was the story? The guy who Dean turned in front of, who survived the crash, just died like last year? And he never talked about the accident or did he just before he died?

If JD were alive today, what Porsche would he own? A few months ago this was asked about Steve McQueen. Produced some interesting comments.

[mwbaum]

those are some nasty crash photos.....wrong place at the wrong time....

[350HP930]

I saw a good documentary where the investigative organization that performs many aircraft crash investigations (and the challenger explosion investigation) http://fail.com looked at the pictures and information from the Dean crash to determine what happened in the accident and who was responsible.

It appears that Dean was driving the speed limit and the beheamoth that ran over him crossed the centerline when nearing the turn.

And to think that most people assume that Dean hot rodded himself to death.

[don911]

Yep, from what I've heard of the crash, a guy turned in front of him.
An 18 wheeler did this exact thing to me a few years ago. I was driving my dad's RX7 on a two lane hwy back in MT. The guy in truck just never saw me and turned across the hwy. Luckily, I saw him start to turn and was able cross over the other side of the hwy and on to the shoulder.
That RX7 had some bad voodoo as well. My dad bought it after it was damaged in a hail storm. We pulled all the divits and repainted it. That car seemed to attract accidents. It was hit twice in parking lots. It T-boned a guy when someone in a left lane waved an on coming car to turn left across traffic. It was finally put to rest when my dad tried to cross a 4 lane road and didn't see the SUV coming down the road. It just about punted my dad, who never wears a SB, out the passenger window. Luckily the SUV hit the 1/4 panel and not the door or that probably would have been my dad's last drive as well.
jeez, sorry for the novel....

[nostatic]

It appears as though the airbags didn't deploy. I think someone should sue Porsche. Maybe a class action suit rolled in with the 2.7 issues.

[fogcity]

The guy that hit JD died about 8-9 years ago, heart attack I think. At the time, he was a student at Cal Poly in SLO. Yes, he did go over the centre line towards Dean.

At one point the wrecked car was put on display at various venues until people kept stealing pieces of glass, etc. to make jewelry.

Last I heard no one knows where the car is but is rumored to be in the possession of a Japanese business man.

[Sonic dB]

A month before Jimmy was killed....he did a promo spot for the National Highway Safety Board... at the end of it he said: "Be careful out there...the life you save...may be mine."

ironic.

[Big_Mac]

Amazing photos. You can make out the 130 on the car, but no 'little b@stard'.
What is the subconscious word overlaid on each picture though - is it an advert for medical insurance?

[Supergranule]

what are the stores about the car's bad mojo? I remember hearing something like t falling off of its dsplay stand and crushing a little boy, and something else about when it was being transported it injured/killed someome or something like that.

[speeder]

Well, a little bit of misinformation here. The intersection where he died, California highways 41&46, is definitely still there. I have driven past/through it many times, including hauling ass in my Porsche in the same direction that he was going on my way to the Rgruppe gathering in Cambria last year.

The car that he hit entered 46 from 41 at a 45deg. angle, it is one of those "X" shaped intersections, if you can imagine craning your neck to look over your left shoulder for oncoming traffic you would get the picture. The guy that he hit, (name was Donald Turnipseed for trivia buffs), had a stop sign and Dean didn't. I think, but wouldn't swear to it, that Dean was exceeding the speed limit by quite a bit. It was kind of a "perfect storm", very low slung silver car cresting a small rise, about 4 or 5 in the afternoon in September, so the sun was low and made the car momentarily invisible to Turnipseed, poor guy didn't mean to kill him obviously but never saw him and entered the highway. I might have the position of the cars mixed up, (which one was on which highway), but I am sure about the rest. He had just picked up the new Spider @ Competition Motors in Hollywood, maybe even that AM, and was familiarising himself w/ it as well as breaking it in on the way up North to Salinas for a road race. To this day I have no idea where they would have been racing in Salinas in 1955, but that is the official story. I have wondered if it wasn't Laguna Seca, (very near Salinas), maybe Dean mistakenly told others that he was going to Salinas, or near Salinas, who knows? He had already owned at least one other Porsche, a 356 cab or speedster, which he had tracked or autoX-ed. Not sure how talented a driver he was, but he was addicted to speed and motor racing, that much is sure.

The barn/shack that they towed his car to still exists in Cholame, a short distance from the site of the crash, it is on 46 and is next to a cafe or store. Kind of a tourist spot, I think that they sell pics like the ones above. According to legend, two or three different people who bought parts from his car, (engine and transaxle were about the only salvagable parts), met unfortunate ends. This can be explained by the general danger of sports car racing, especially in those days and w/ that car. It was basically a fast aluminum soda can.

James Dean was a very special and talented actor, but whether he would have had a long and distinguished career is open for debate. He was an extremely troubled person, with a prediliction for getting really really drunk and being self-destructive. I was a big fan as a teenager, I have never believed that he would have experienced old age even if Donald Turnipseed had been "a minute sooner or later". Just my opinion, of course. I have met several people who knew him in my 20 years here, they tend to agree, FWIW.

Lastly, they did not leave him dead in his car covered up, I have seen the rare picture of him on the stretcher being loaded into a big Buick ambulance, they rushed him to the hospital in Paso Robles, about 20 miles away, he was DOA.

[Sonic dB]

Speeder....I wasnt deliberately spouting mis information... I recently read that the highway was altered in 1956 and the intersection had changed. Check out this link for more. Perhaps it is not correct:

http://our.tentativetimes.net/cholame/#hiwaychanges

[Sonic dB]

Here is another more definitive link:

http://www.jamesdeanmemorialjunction.com/Highway46-1.htm