It has been more than 40 years since 24-year-old James Byron Dean crashed his Porsche Spyder on a deserted stretch of highway near Paso Robles, Calif.Sept. 30, 1955. He was on his way to a car race he had entered in Salinas when acollege student named Donald Turnupseed suddenly pulled out in front of him. As Dean tried to avoid the collision, he shouted to his passenger, Rolf Wutherich,"That guy's got to stop!" Those were his last words.

Dean was pronounced dead in route to the hospital. Yet it was in death that his legendwas born, and it has grown steadily ever since.