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.
Ben Branch -
Dot Smith
This is Dot Smith, the famous female stunt rider from the 1930s and 40s, she was a member of the San Francisco Motorcycle Club and a founding member of the iconic “Motor Maids” with Dot Robinson and Linda Degeau.
Sunday Cinema: The Kid Auto Race
https://youtu.be/hBkKtXs06zg?t=9 This film, named ‘Kid Auto Race‘, set a couple of significant milestones in cinema history. It was the first time the world ever…
The Magnificent Bastard by Icon 1000
This bike started life as a 1986 Honda VF1000R although it would have been hard to guess given the modifications to the bike. The lower fairings have been removed and the remaining body work has been sanded back and given and eye catching distressed paint job.
Fighter Jet Landing
This is one of those photographs I can spend few minutes looking at, the sparks and the sense of motion carry through the lens so well in some images and this is a great example.
Bell Aurens Longnose
It isn’t often that I discover a Land Rover variant I’ve never seen before, so when I stumbled across a picture of this, the Bell Aurens Longnose I thought I was looking at a long forgotten Land Rover concept car, or perhaps an old Defender modified by a wealthy oil sheik.
Steve McQueen – Sports Illustrated
Taken from the August 1971 edition of Sports Illustrated this is one of the most famous photos of McQueen in action.
Honda CB750K Cafe Racer
The Honda CB750 is quite possibly the most “Café’d” bike in history, not that that’s a bad thing, the engine and frame are both…
Vespa Sidecar
This is singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards and her pooch, in a park just outside of Toronto, Canada. Vespas with sidecars attached have always
Stheart Detroit Tee
Detroit has, arguably, had the hardest time of any city in the US over the past 5 years. The economic downturn hit the big automobile manufacturers hard and layoffs, unemployment and plummeting house prices have taken their toll on the residents of Motor City.
Honda CB500 by Steel Bent Customs
Michael Mundy is the owner of Steel Bent Customs based out of Oldsmar, Florida. His garage has a track record for building bikes that are the distillation of modern café racers, I know that term is over used nowadays but it used to refer to bikes that were bought as stock, stripped back as much as possible to save weight and then modified only in ways that would increase performance. Very much like this Honda CB500.
Fallout 3 Bike
Most guys spend their high school years chasing tail, unsuccessfully trying to buy beer and making every effort to look like Kurt Cobain. Lord knows I did. But that isn’t the path Chris Riffel chose for himself, this inspirational high schooler got a group of friends together, talked some teachers into helping and then set about building a fully functioning Fallout 3 bike, right down to the little radiation emblems on the front and rear.
Wallet & Chain by The Lowly Gentleman
This beautiful retro wallet and chain is made by The Lowly Gentlemen, based out of southern California. The wallet is cowhide with a suede interior and offset cream stitching whilst the cord is modelled on vintage hotrod electrical cables and comes with brass clips at either end.