This B-17 Wright R-1820 Cyclone radial engine table is built from a decommissioned R-1820 engine – this is the motor that powered every wartime example of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Douglas SBD Dauntless bombers as well as countless other aircraft, armored vehicles, and tanks including the M4A6 Sherman and the M6 Heavy Tank.
The Wright R-1820 Cyclone first entered production in 1931, it’s a 9-cylinder radial engine that was loosely based on the Wright P-2 engine, and it was built under license in the Soviet Union as the Shvetsov M-25 and in Spain as the Hispano-Suiza 9V.
Over the course of its decades-long production run the R-1820 was developed into dozens of different engine specifications including diesel variants. The most powerful example was the R-1820-82WA which was capable of an eye-watering 1,525 hp.
Although there are still a considerable number of Wright R-1820 Cyclones in service, most of them have been retired, and a lucky few have been converted into functional art like this one. With a diameter of 1,600 mm (5′ 3″) and a height of 1,100 mm (3′ 7″) it’s not a diminutive piece of furniture, meaning it’d make an excellent centerpiece and an ideal beverage consumption platform in a suitably large drawing or billiard room.
Ben Branch has had his work featured on CNN, Popular Mechanics, the official Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, 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 millions of readers around the world and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
The Montague Paratrooper Bike was developed with a grand from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Unites States Military to provide paratroopers and other special forces soldiers with a strong, fast, and almost entirely silent form of transportation upon landing. Militaries around the world have faced the same problem when it comes…
The Recurved Rocker is a traditional rocking chair made from reclaimed bourbon barrels. 100% of the wood used in the construction of each chair is sourced from used barrels, and you can still see the curvature and charring on the wood. The chairs are the work of Balazs Moldovan, a native of Miskolc, Hungary…
This series of tees by Nik Schultz of L-Dopa Design are called “Dark Mode”, he developed the series to showcase a series of motorsport icons against the blackness of a night sky, rather than the more traditional bright white. The t-shirts include a modified Porsche 911 2.2, a Mini Cooper S, a Porsche 917, an…
The Airstream Excella 280 motorhome is one of the less common Airstream models – most Airstreams were travel trailers (also known as caravans) that lacked a motor and required a tow to get from each location to the next. It was these sleek, aluminum trailers that have made the company famous. The Excella was designed…
This short film by the team at Real Engineering provides an 11 minute, information packed speed run through the history of America’s Cold War nuclear powered planes. Early in the Cold War both the United States and the Soviet Union researched and experimented with nuclear powered planes, most commonly with engines that heated air with nuclear…
The Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 is almost certainly the most famous aircraft engine in history, I’m sure there are other contenders of course but I’m convinced the Merlin has them beat. Although most believe the engine is named for the famous wizard of the same name from the legend of King Arthur, it’s actually named after…
