Behind The Ton Up Boys is a short film from the ’60s showing the original era of the cafe racer, the 59 Club and the Ace Cafe. There isn’t much good footage out there of the period – especially footage shot from moving vehicles of the Ton Up Boys in action, so this film is an interesting insight.
The film seems to have been created to show the other side of the motorcycling world, in the ’60s and ’70s the Ton Up Boys made a bit of a nuisance of themselves on British roads, and the death toll amongst their ranks was troublingly high. At only 9 minutes long the film is a quick watch and well worth the time, after watching you might want to read a little more about The 59 Club, in which case you can click here.
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 Heroine Racer Bumblebee is one of the more eye-catching helmets made by British company Hedon, making it a perfect lid for riders who want to make absolutely certain they’re seen by other motorists. Hedon was founded in 2011 by Lindsay and Reginald, both of whom have extensive experience in design and helmet making, placing…
The Davida Koura is a full face motorcycle helmet designed by engineers with experience developing helmets for both MotoGP and Formula 1. Although the shell design of the Koura is retro, the the engineering that went into it is entirely modern. The Koura has been safety certified by the ECE R22-05 (EU), DOT FMVS 281…
The Talbot Sunbeam Lotus was a hot hatch from the golden age of the genre that would go on to astonish the motor racing world by winning the 1981 World Rally Championship, competing against the Audi Quattro, the Renault 5 Turbo, the Fiat 131 Abarth, Ford Escort RS1800, and the Toyota Celica 2000GT. Des O’Dell and…
This is the DeLorean documentary by Pennebaker Hegedus Films, it’s a full-length film about the DeLorean Motor Corporation, the DMC-12, John DeLorean, and the trials and tribulations that the company confronted before the launch of their iconic car. Filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker are icons of the direct cinema approach to filmmaking, they typically…
This article was written by Per Gabos, the creator of this rather unusual pulsejet-powered motorcycle. The Weltmeister Fictional Experimental Motorcycle The Idea What if the Germans had built experimental pulsejet-powered motorcycles in the mid-1930s – how would these have been made and what would they have looked like? In the 1940s there were already…
This film from 1950 was created to give Americans a look into what it was like to fly on the then-new Pan American Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. The Stratocruiser was an advanced aircraft for its time, it featured a pressurised cabin, two floors of seating for passengers, and it could carry up to 100 people. The…
