Das Kleine Wunder or “the little wonder” was the name of the first two-stroke engine used in a DKW motorcycle, by the late 1920s and early 1930s DKW was the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world and in 1932, DKW merged with Wanderer, Audi and Horch to form the infamous Auto Union.
This footage is a promotional reel from the DKW factory in Germany, it shows the motorcycle production line process from start to finish and though it doesn’t have narration, the faint hiss and whirr of the film projector says it all.
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 is the Husqvarna 400 Cross ridden by Steve McQueen in the seminal motorcycle documentary On Any Sunday – undoubtedly one of the most important motorcycle films ever made. The closing scene of the documentary famously features Mert Lawwill, Malcolm Smith, and movie star Steve McQueen riding over sand dunes and out across a beach…
The biggest surprise during my week on the Ducati Scrambler Desert Sled was just how much attention it got – people would cross the street to talk to me when I parked it, and gas station visits would always result in at least one but usually two or more people coming over for a chat….
Editor’s Note: This film was transcoded from VHS so it’s not perfect, there are also a couple of black screen sections where I assume the original ad breaks were – I suggest fast forwarding through them. The original Widowmaker Hill Climb took place on a hillside in Draper, Utah. It became a world famous event…
The BOTT XR1 is a Buell conversion kit that turns the already razor-sharp Buell XB12 into a lighting fast street tracker with 100 bhp, 81 ft lbs of torque, and a kerb weight of 394 lbs (179 kgs) – over 44 lbs less than the Buell it started out as. Bottpower + David Sánchez Bottpower…
The Ducati 999 was one of the most successful superbikes of its era in the Superbike World Championship – the model won the championship outright in 2003 (Neil Hodgson), 2004 (James Toseland), 2006 (Troy Bayliss), and it also won the 2005 BSB title (Gregorio Lavilla). The Ducati 999 The 999 had its work cut out…
Lloyd Brothers Motorsports have been building some of the quickest flat trackers in the world for over 25 years, but this project wasn’t built for dirt oval competition, it was built as a father son project by company co-founder (and Dad) David Lloyd, and his son James. The Beginning The project began with a 1987 Honda…
