James Dean
 

Anyone else remember September 30th?
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1064945301.jpg

hahaha! I have a pic of myself standing and looking at a 55 / 550 spyder the same way he is looking at that one!! but i can't afford one and he could and did buy one.


Eric

Where are people finding these cool pics? I can't find them anywhere!

Didn't he die on this day 50 years ago or something while heading to a race in Salinas?

Damned if I know!
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1064950842.jpg

Hwy 46 near Cholame (sp?). He was head to Laguna Seca, I think.

wasn't a race if memory serves me right,

he was just driving and had somebody crossing the road
lot's of discussions afterwards if it wasn't some conspiracy
reason for suspicions was signs of braking on the road , which some said was bull**** because JD was great driver , and a great driver like him would have accellerated out of danger , instead of locking brakes and crashing.. dunno myself, probly was a plain old accident

He was going to a race. He had his mechanic, Rolf Wutherich (sp?) with him, and he was a making a cross traffic turn at a "T" insection at desk and was hit by a young man in a station wagon. As you can imagine, the Spyder didn't have a chance.

As a geologist, I used to spend a lot of time in Cholame studying the San Andreas fault. Dean was heading west on route 46 toward Paso Robles at dusk. Donald Turnipseed was heading east in a Buick, I think, on route 46/40, when he turned left at a Y-intersection to continue on route 40 toward Coalinga. (I may have the route numbers reversed) In Dean's direction, the road hardly turned, so he didn't have to slow down. Turnipseed simply made a left turn right in front of Dean. He said he never saw the car coming. Later analysis determined that Dean was not speeding, but he had no chance. Although the spyder was crushed, the German passanger survivied, only to die a few years later in a race. There's a monument to Dean that was erected by a Japanese fan at a hamburger joint about 1/4 mile west of the crash site. Besides the monument, there's a lot of info on the walls of the restaurant. Dean was 24.

"Old man, look at my life. 24 and there's so much more."

Charlie
1970 911E

Actually, wasn't Dean going straight. I thought the station wagon made a left turn in front of Dean.?

I think MMARSH & Charlie are right. Dean was going straight, and Turnipseed (I couldn't remember his name, but I knew it was unforgettable... ) turned across him. Dean's Spyder from Competition Motors had larger than stock brakes, but it didn't matter...

Wow this thread is kind of creepy. Last night for no reason whatsoever, I did a search on James Dean (on Pelican). I didn't even know it was his death day! Wow pretty weird. Check out this thread on him, if you keep reading you learn all about the curse of his car and how many people it has killed-James was only the first! After reading the thread I had to go to Disney.com just to lose that creepy feeling in my body!!!

Check it!!!!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=118155&highlight=james+ dean

Try a Google Images search on "james dean porsche".

mmarsh& naparsei are are correct on the direction, jd bio's have almost all the pics of him......he was the reason i got into porsches when i was thirteen doing a book reprt on him...sad ...sad day

I just remembered... about a year ago I heard on the radio that Donald Turnipseed died of natural causes at a ripe old age. Poor guy was famous for the wrong reason.

Charlie
1970 911E