by Wallace Wyss –
In SoCal, blessed by good weather, there are dozens of car events each weekend. As a chronicler of cars of the past, I like to pick one event to go to.
Sometimes it is the cars that draw me. Other times it’s the setting and the cars. The setting this time was a Cars & Coffee held monthly at a shopping center in Malibu, near Zuma Beach, one of the last beaches before you enter Ventura County.
It was generally newer sports car owners who attended but occasionally there was an old classic. Now winter is a hard time to shoot because the sun comes up Godawful early. I actually went even before the sun was up, which was scheduled to take place at 5:30am. It was a horrible drive from 40 miles inland–once I hit Pacific Coast Highway it was so dark and foggy it was like driving through black cotton candy,
A few cars were there when I arrived in pitch dark conditions. Then I saw the 550 Spyder. I took a good position for a high rear view. But it was too dark to shoot. I knew there was a crowd forming around it in quiet reverence because that model can never be separated from being the conveyance that killed James Dean (I remember when it happened).
The facts can be found in seconds on the net. In 1955, Dean was killed when he got bored towing the 550 Spyder to a race up North so he took it off the trailer and drove with his mechanic. He collided with a Ford Tudor sedan along then-U.S. Route 446 near Cholame, California. The Ford, was piloted by then 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, who was turning at an intersection when the two cars hit almost head-on. Dean’s car, easily a ton lighter, was reduced to a total wreck. Dean died. His mechanic survived.
In Malibu, 70 plus years later, the sun burned through the fog up about 5:30, and the glossy silver of the car caught the light but the crowd was still emerging from darkness, the sun lighting their hair but their faces were still suffused in the fog. I began shooting and only caught five shots before-BAM–I realized I was no use to shoot any further–the sun was up and already too bright. I made a painting later based on the best shot, gratified the car had emerged as the main player–the crowds’ faces were still fighting to emerge from the fog and darkness, only their hair had caught the sun and the crowd was reduced to minor players.
I don’t know when I will have another such opportunity–a historic car, the right color, a fog-cloaked darkness going up like a stage curtain and a car I remember well, if only for the saddest reason…
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
THE ARTIST Wallace Wyss has canvas giclee prints of his painting in 20″ x 30″ size. He can be reached at Malibucarart@gmail.com
“As a young kid growing up in Tampa I had the incredible opportunity to get up close and personal with 550A-RS 1500 #0144. It was by this time just an old obsolete race car. Jack Sheppard SR bought the car directly from the Porsche competition team at Sebring in 1958 for his son Joe. Joe already had two 550’s prior to obtaining 0144. The car was brand new and had zero run time on it. Joe went on to win after win with the car before retiring from competition. Afterwards the car was just pushed into the dark recesses of the service department at Sheppards Imports. It went on to further wins in my imagination as I sat behind the wheel dreaming of racing at Sebring and Havana just like Joe did many years prior.