James Dean and the Little Bastard Porsche

James Dean died on 30 September 1955 in a crash in his Porsche 550 Spyder, nicknamed the Little Bastard. Later accounts tie the car to a warning from Alec Guinness.

James Dean died on 30 September 1955. According to Biography.com, he was on his way to a weekend race at Salinas, California, with mechanic Rolf Wuetherich, in his new 550 Spyder, a Porsche. A police officer stopped them south of Bakersfield at half past three in the afternoon and ticketed them for speeding. Later, on Route 466, Donald Turnupseed, aged 23 and a student at Cal Poly, turned at an intersection and collided with the Porsche, almost head-on. Wuetherich was seriously injured and survived. Dean died at the scene, aged 24.

Street Muscle Magazine says the Porsche was called the Little Bastard. It reports that Dean went to Competition Motors that morning to collect it, and that Wuetherich persuaded him to drive it to Salinas for break-in miles. Dean had planned to trailer it.

A story of a warning from the actor Alec Guinness is told in two versions. Jalopnik says Guinness met Dean outside a restaurant on 23 September 1955, called the car "sinister", and predicted he would turn up dead in it within a week. Jason Colavito's account has Guinness telling a reporter, days after meeting Dean, that they had dined together, and that Dean had shown him the Porsche. Dean said friends had pleaded with him against buying it, fearing he would drive too fast and die, and Colavito says several friends confirmed they had warned him.