In this wonderfully retro 1963 film Craig Breedlove breaks the land speed record at the Bonneville salt flats, driving a jet car named Spirit of America.
Breedlove lost the record in 1964 to Tom Green but returned to Bonneville in the same year and took the Spirit of America to over 500mph, reclaiming his record. After his record setting second run the Spirit of America lost its parachute brakes and hurtled out of control for 5 miles across the salt, then took out a series of telephone poles before crashing into a pond at 200mph.
Breedlove survived the accident miraculously uninjured and set both the world speed record and the Guinness World Record for the longest set of skid marks ever made, clearly making him one of the coolest men to ever walk the Earth.
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.
This short film was shot in 1987 as part of the British sports television show “Grandstand”, it could very well have been lost to history but fortunately it’s been uploaded from an old VHS tape to YouTube. The clip includes Murray visiting the Ferrari headquarters in Maranello to speak personally with Enzo Ferrari about his…
The Land Rover Series III The Series III Land Rover was the last to wear the “Series” designation, and some view it as the last of the original Land Rovers. Ever since the first Series I had rolled off the production line in 1948, Land Rover had been constantly updating the design to improve its capability…
There are few vehicles better suited to expedition camper conversion than the original Mercedes-Benz Unimog 404, and this mountain rescue / fire truck is an ideal candidate thanks to its double cab front and tray-back rear. Unimog 404 History The Unimog was conceived in almost exactly the same way as the original Land Rover Series…
The One-Off Molzon Concept Corsa GT38 The Molzon Concept Corsa GT38 is a one-off sports car developed by William “Bill” Molzon – a visionary GM designer who worked closely with under Larry Shinoda on some of most successful models in the history of Chevrolet. Molzon went to work at General Motors immediately after graduating with…
This 1964 Porsche 356 Outlaw has suspension and a tubular steel chassis developed and built by Porsche racing legend and former Brumos Racing Crew Chief Mike Colucci. This fact alone would make it a highly desirable car to any well-read member of the Porsche cognoscenti, but it also has a 1975 911 engine hand-built by noted Porsche engine…
This 40% scale Reynard Indycar model was designed for wind tunnel testing, as such it’s built to exacting specifications to exactly match the full scale race cars. Just two of these models were made in 1998, it took a team of over two dozen people three months to complete the project. Each of the models…
