The Camel Trophy was an event that included a long list of things I love, from Land Rovers and off-road driving to continent crossing and driving through large, fast moving rivers. Although I’m not entirely sure how much I love that last one.
The competition started in 1980 and ran until 2000 when cigarette advertising was becoming less acceptable in motorsport. It seems a shame that it ended so abruptly, I’d love to see some company pick up the reins and put together a similar competition – perhaps also opening it up to other marques as a sort of world series event between 4×4 manufacturers.
The film above covers the 1988 Camel Trophy, it took place in Sulawesi, Indonesia and the vehicle of choice was the Land Rover One Ten – the precursor to the modern Land Rover Defender. The film runs just over 1 hour and makes great viewing – just be warned, after you watch it you’ll be trawling through eBay Motors looking at Land Rovers for sale in your area.
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.
