DELWYN MALLETT
Mallett’s mental meanderings
“MOBIL ACTUALLY ISSUED INSTRUCTIONS…”
Irecently ordered a pair of Mobil Pegasus stickers from ebay – thought they might make the Speedster a little faster. Not wanting to over-gild the lily I ordered the smaller of the pair advertised which proved to be the wrong decision as they were too small. My intention had been to position them to the rear of the front wheel arch where, indeed, most classic Porsche owners would stick them, but the pair I ordered seemed a little lost in the space.
Now, I have to say, I trained as a graphic designer at art school and spent my career in advertising as an art director, so Iʼm one of those people who fuss rather a lot over spacing and composition. Disappointed with my purchase I retreated to Google to check exactly where James Dean, who, as we know, was somewhat style and image conscious, positioned his Pegasus and how large it might have been. Suspicion confirmed, his was bigger than mine…
As Dean aficionados will know he participated in five races before his untimely death on the way to what would have been his most ambitious meeting, having exchanged his Speedster for Porscheʼs latest hot racer, a 550 Spyder. Despite the hype that surrounds Dean the racer, we will never know if he would have actually made the grade in the way that those other Hollywood legends Steve Mcqueen and Paul Newman did.
Although there are far fewer photographs of Dean racing than might accrue in todayʼs paparazzi, iphoneobsessed times, there are still enough to build quite a good chronology of his racing exploits.
In between finishing his second film, and defining role, Rebel Without a Cause and starting his final movie, Giant, Dean bought and entered his new 1500 Super Speedster in the 8th Palm Springs Road Race run over the weekend of March 26–27. And there's no doubt that Dean threw himself into his first races with enthusiasm. He did, after all, have his Hollywood rebel reputation to maintain.
By race time, obviously concerned that the paintwork on his new car might suffer from stone chips, it had been heavily taped across the entire nose, numbers applied, 23 F (Sports Car Club of America designated categories with letters, ʻFʼ was for production cars) and not one but four Pegasus decals – two facing each other on either side of the hood handle and, rather strangely, one on the top edge of each door about mid-way along.
Dean won his novice heat and appeared on the Sunday in the under- 1500cc final against stiffer opposition, where he finished first in class and third overall. Deanʼs exuberance at one point saw him take the shine off his new machine, running wide and side-swiping the straw bales that marked out the course on the airport circuit.
One month later, at Bakersfield, Dean entered another novice race on the Saturday and on the Sunday was just beaten into ninth place and second in the F production class by another Porsche. His final race meeting was at Santa Barbara, another airport track, over the Memorial Day weekend. Dean had started filming Giant, which would be his last movie, and studio commitments forced him to miss the Saturday qualifying. Thereʼs a shot of Dean arriving at the meeting, presumably on the Sunday, with the Speedster now featuring just the one Pegasus on the driver ʼs side flank – there was also one on the passenger side. Later that day, numbered-up as ʻ33Fʼ, Dean DNFʼD, blowing his engine. Despite this, or because of it, the racing bug had bitten and the young star immediately traded the Speedster for the 550.
Although the Pegasus had been registered as a corporate logo in 1911 it wasnʼt until the mid-1930s that it began to appear as a promotional device on automobiles. In 1936 Mobil started its coast-to-coast ʻEconomy Runʼ for domestic cars and the Mobil shield with a Pegasus within it started to adorn the heavily sign-painted machines.
Post WWII Mobil became more engaged with motor sport and Pegasus soon flew out of the shield and became a symbol in its own right. All kinds of racing could be seen sporting the red flying horse, from Indianapolis 500 roadsters to Carrera Panamericana sedans and sports cars, including Porsche, and SCCA competitors, particularly those in Southern California.
Most spectacular of all was the World Land Speed Record breaking Napier Railton Special of Britainʼs John Cobb, which hurtled across the Bonneville salt flats at over 400mph in 1947 with two large Pegasus logos emblazoned on its streamlined nose. By the end of the Fifties Mobil seemed to have drifted out of direct sponsorship and the Pegasus ceased to feature on racers.
As a graphic designer I was pleased to discover that Mobil actually issued instructions for the correct positioning of their flying horse, albeit that the photographic evidence of the period tends to suggest that it was largely ignored. Sheets of Mobil-licensed decals stated that Pegasus MUST be positioned such that its nose is parallel to the ground. I will take note. CP