Inspired by the Porsche 356, Porsche decided to build a car, which was widely designed for auto-racing. The first time a 550 raced was in roadster format at the Nurburgring Eifel race in May 1953, winning in its first race. Over the next few years, the Werks Porsche team evolved and raced the 550 with outstanding results, the car was instantly recognized wherever it appeared. With these cars, Porsche was the first car manufacturer to capture a race sponsorship!

For such a limited number of prototype and customer builds, the 550 Spyder achieved a disproportionate success percentage, usually finishing in the top three on a bad day. The stand out feature of the 550 was its seamless transition from race dominator to road car, and both could be achieved on the same day! Who needs a truck to get you to the track when you could cruise there in style.

Arguably, the most famous owner of a Porsche 550 was the legendary James Dean. In 1955 Dean decided to trade in his 356 Porsche Super Speedster at competition motors, for a new 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder. Dean then asked a customer car painter to paint the moniker ‘Little Bastard’ on the car.

Purportedly, James the origin of the name came from Jack L. Warner of Warner Brothers studios. Warner once referred to Dean as ‘little Bastard’ after he had refused to vacate his temporary ‘House of Eden’ trailer on the studio’s lot. Later on, Dean was banned from racing sports cars during the filming of Warner Brothers movies, as a way of getting his own back Dean adopted ‘Little Bastard’ as a middle finger to his boss during his downtime.

In 2018, it is much harder to get your hands on a Porsche 550, you definitely can’t trade in your old Porsche at a local dealer for one. They are an incredibly rare car, should you be able to find one for sale it will probably cost more than your house value (timesed by ten). So many are settling for a modern day replica. Now some might see replica as a dirty word, but in the case of the Spyder 550, it grants you access to an icon of early motorsport that would be otherwise out of reach.

The Spyder takes you back to a time before onboard computers and power steering, in a way it is the purest driving experience imaginable, it forces you to sit upright and give it your full attention, awakening a part of your brain that is often less used in today’s civilized world.

A great replica perfectly captures the power to weight ratio which made this car such a cult classic half a century ago. Depending on the replica that you source, it’s not actually uncommon to find a more powerful version that carries less weight.

For the first time, we have a Replica Porsche Spyder 550 in our showroom, which just so happens to be modeled after James Deans fateful version. Feel free to take a look here on our site, or come take a look at the spectacle in person if you are ever passing through Essex!

Just For Fun !