1987 was a special year at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, it was the first time a competitor beat the 11 minute mark in the race to the summit – a mad dash up grades averaging 7% over the 12.42 mile (20 kilometre) course, there are 156 turns and by the time you reach the top you’ve climbed from 4,720 feet (1,440 metres) from the start at Mile 7 on Pikes Peak Highway, to the finish at 14,110 feet (4,300 metres).
Walter Röhrl was the man to beat the record, he was piloting his 600hp Audi Sport Quattro S1 up the largely dirt course and if that sounds like something you’d like to see, I added the video containing footage of it below. As a way of memorialising Walter’s run, the father and son team over at Heritage Racing have created this t-shirt – we love the minimalist design and the clever use of the German flag as the background for the Audi, each tee costs $25 USD and can be bought from the button below.
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
