This is Dot Smith, the famous female stunt rider from the 1930s and 40s, she was a member of the San Francisco Motorcycle Club and a founding member of the iconic “Motor Maids” with Dot Robinson and Linda Degeau.
In this photograph she’s sitting on her 1937 EL Knucklehead and looking damn near perfect with that little ribbon in her hair. They just don’t make ’em like they used too.
Click the photograph for the high-resolution version.
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.
We damn near had no film. The sinking sun gave us a hard out of around 6:10 pm and my watch read 5:30. Months of planning, a lot of money and the sliver of a reputation I had nearly joined the disappearing daylight.
This 1968 Ford Bronco is the most successful Pioneer 4×4 class truck in modern NORRA desert racing history, it has competed in the brutal Mexican 1000 since 2010, racking up 7 class wins and 4 Pioneer-era “Steve McQueen” trophies. “The Bronco has always been the benchmark of off-road ability and an icon in the world of desert racing,…
The Bill Thomas Cheetah has become an unlikely success story, the car was first designed as a concept car of sorts for Chevrolet who were seeking something a little more hard-edged than the Corvette to take on and beat the new Shelby Cobras. Bill Thomas – Self-Taught Engineer Extraordinaire Bill Thomas was a legendary California…
Whenever I see a Maserati motorcycle at a show I have to go over for a closer look and chat to the owner, they’re a rare sight nowadays, and there are many who have no idea that motorcycles were ever built by the Italian company far more famous for their performance cars. Maserati Motorcycles – Fabbrica…
This 1910 Cadillac racer is a brass era roadster that was built with one thing in mind – competition. In 1910 the automotive world was still in its infancy, the first gasoline-powered car had been built by Karl Benz just 25 years earlier, and they still largely resembled horse drawn carriages with missing ponies. This…
Under the hood of the Berardini Bros 1932 Ford was a Flathead V8 so dominant on the 1/4 mile drag strips of the LA-area in the 1950s that the very sound of it would strike fear into the hearts of its competitors. Pat and Tony Berardini won the Gas and Fuel Street Roadster Championships from…
