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 -
BMW R75/5 Café Racer
BMW motorcycles from the ’60s and ’70s provide a somewhat unexpected platform for café racer conversions, the bikes (largely) weren’t designed as speed demons…
Mantis Bottleneck Knife
The 50 state legal Mantis Bottleneck Knife caught my eye last week, I like to try to keep a small knife on me as they can tend to come in handy when you least expect it and this one has the added bonus of..
The Fuchsia One
Drag racing a bright fuchsia AC Cobra has to be just about the coolest hobby a man can have, hats off to Ed Hedrick.
The Icon Sheene Motorcycle
Okay so this is the Icon Sheene Motorcycle and I’m going to get all the numbers out of the way first. 52 of these bikes will be built (each to order), each bike produces 250hp and 133ft/lbs torque from a hand-built, turbo-charged 1400cc Suzuki engine.
Delta 26 Open
This is the Delta 26 Open, a new design from Scandinavian based Delta Powerboats. It comes with the option of either a 220hp diesel with a top speed of 38 knots..
Elizabeth
As a guy with solid British heritage I think it only fitting to mention the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee this week, this is a post-WWII photograph of then Princess Elizabeth with her favourite corgi, sitting in what I think is a Rolls-Royce.
Onboard With Joey Dunlop At The 1983 Isle of Man
This breathtaking 10 minute film shows Joey Dunlop completing a high-speed lap of the Isle of Man circuit in 1983 onboard his Honda V4 RS850R.
Sepia SeeSaw
I’m going to need someone to explain, or try to explain, what the hell is going on in this picture. Click the image for the large size.
Scrambler Kit by Mr Martini
The Triumph Scrambler is a modern motorcycle that, with a few clever tweaks, could be genuinely great. Nicola Martini obviously agrees with this sentiment although unlike me, he has the skills and resources to actually do something about it.
Enamel Mug
The humble enamel mug might be an odd thing to love but the little tin cups hold enormous personal significance for me, they remind me of my Grandfather and of camping trips with my Dad when I was still wearing short trousers.
Indian Chout Hillclimber
The Indian Chout is a rather interesting beast, in some respects it represents the American version of the Triton. In off-road racing circles during the 1930’s it became popular to drop a 1490cc Indian Chief motor into an Indian Scout frame, creating a Frankenstein bike with a relatively high power-to-weight ratio for the era.
Goldmember by Goldammer Cycle Works
We featured the Nortorious by Goldammer Cycle Works earlier this week and it caused all of our regular reader’s eyes to explode out of…