Articles that Ben 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 -
Vintage Motorcycle Hill Climbing
Motorcycle hill climbing events are always a white-knuckle endeavour, attempting such an activity on brutally simple suspension must have required an iron will and a pair of titanium balls.
CB550-FZR600 Hybrid By Steel Bent Customs
Steel Bent Customs is turning out some of my favourite custom motorcycles at the moment, bikes like this Honda CB550 are a great testament to the garage, believe it or not this café racer is part Honda CB550 and part Yamaha FZR600.
Heroes of Speed Tee by Dime City Cycles
The T-Shirt is a wardrobe staple, no buttons, collars, sleeves or cufflinks. In fact they’re damn near the perfect item of clothing for anyone who thinks mirrors are for women and perhaps signalling aircraft should you happen get lost in the woods.
Deus Grievous Angel
The Yamaha SR400 is world-famous as a custom motorcycle platform, Japanese bike builders like Brat Style and Gravel Crew kicked off the trend with Australian motorcycle custom garage Deus Ex Machina arguably perfecting the art form.
eBay Find: 1962 Lotus Super 7
To say the the Lotus 7 is an icon would be like saying Saturn V rockets are a little bit fiery. The Super 7 was designed by Lotus founder and motorsport engineering-god Colin Chapman in 1957 and is widely considered to be the essence of Lotus’ design philosophy.
First Ever NHRA National Event in 1955
The NHRA or National Hot Rod Association was founded by Wally Parks in 1951, he wanted to get drag racing off the streets and onto safer, professional level tracks and in doing so he doubtless saved a lot of young men’s lives throughout the 50’s and 60’s.
Leggero Mini Cycle
The AMF Harley-Davidson Leggero Mini Cycle was a bit of an anomaly in its day, the 65cc two-stroke never really caught on in the US and the bikes remain relatively rare stateside to this day.
Hypermotard by Roland Sands Design
In December 2007 Ducati North America met with the team at Roland Sands Design (RSD) and asked them to produce a one-off Hyper Motard, the bike you see pictured above and below is the result of this meeting. The Hypermotard is already one of the more balls-to-the-wall production bikes on the…
Classified Moto 1982 XV920 Tee
Classified Moto is a fantastic company, they specialise in building some of the most iconic and unique bikes you’ll find anywhere. John Ryland, Classified Moto’s owner, also produces some pretty…
Onboard with Jim Clark
This wonderful onboard footage with Jim Clark at the 1963 Oulton Park Grand Prix give a great drivers eye view of what it was like to pilot a 60s era Formula 1 car
Austin Healy Sprite
The Austin Healy Sprite is, in my opinion, one of the best British cars from the golden age of affordable lightweight sports cars. I was never a big fan of the Mark I Frogeye but the Mark IV has always had significant appeal.
Magnolia Special Roadster
The Magnolia Special Roadster is surprisingly not British. Or even European. This unique, compressed natural gas roadster was designed and built by motorcycle designer JT Nesbitt (you may be familiar with his bikes over at Confederate) in New Orleans, development started in 2008 with the hand-built Magnolia Special rolling out of the showroom last month.