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 -
Millenium Falcon Cross Section
There aren’t many red blooded men in the world who don’t find this sort of Star Wars based information fascinating. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever met a guy who I couldn’t talk about cars, women or Star Wars with.
Mercedes Pit Stop
I love the argument that the two men on the left side of the picture are having. I assume he was saying something along the lines of “What the hell do you mean we only have 3 spare wheels?”
Honda CB350 Café Racer by Team Scott Racing
The Honda CB350 is a fantastic platform for café racerisation. It’s a lightweight and inexpensive bike to buy, parts are easy to come by and it’s a remarkably forgiving bike to ride at speed.
Mary ‘Hurricane’ Guthrie
Mary Guthrie flew Hurricanes on transport missions during the second world war, although she never saw combat she was widely considered to be a highly capable pilot by all her knew her.
Top Fuel II by DP Customs
DP Customs is one of our favourite American custom motorcycle builders, their no-bullshit approach to engineering and design is uniquely appealing and thankfully they’ve chosen to stay away from
Handbound Leather Journal by Julie Boyles
All the touch screens in the world will never manage to capture the sensation of writing on paper, though in many respects it’s a dying art. These beautiful leather bound journals are each handmade by Julie Boyles in Indiana
CERN by Da Vinci
These phenomenal sketches show the CMS detector elements of the CERN Hadron Collider, in the style of Leonardo Da Vinci. There’s no artist name available, though whoever created them clearly has no dearth of talent.
1970 Oldsmobile 442
The 1970 Oldsmobile 442 was the result of General Motor’s decision at the beginning of the model year to drop engine capacity limitations. The 455cu or 7.5 litre engine was one of the largest V8s used during the decade and even now stands as a sort of loud testament to a time when displacement was king.
Duffel by Topo
Topo Designs is a fantastic little company based in Colorado, right on the foothills of the Rockies. They’re known for making highly durable gear that’ll likely outlive modern civilisation, meaning it should be able to handle the sociopathic baggage handlers at JFK without breaking a sweat.
Marilyn Singer
Not much to say about this, other than mention the fact that I now want to buy that car.
TwinTrax by The German Motorcycle Authority
Leaving for a moment the unusual name of this garage and just looking at this, their “TwinTrax” motorcycle design from 2011, it’s difficult to know how to categorise their style.
Basil Hayden’s
I’ve always been a little suspicious of American whiskies, this is perhaps due to the fact that my first encounters with them centred around Jim Beam and Jack Daniels. On retrospect I’m fairly sure that the Americans export both of these largely as a joke on the rest of the world, in much the same way that the Australians export Fosters.