The NHRA or National Hot Rod Association was founded by Wally Parks in 1951, he wanted to get drag racing off the streets and onto safer, professional level tracks and in doing so he doubtless saved a lot of young men’s lives throughout the 50’s and 60’s.
This great 10:00 minute film covers the first ever national scale NHRA drag racing event in 1955, it’s Super-8 footage so sadly there’s no audio but it’s still well worth a watch.
Some of the cars featured are so unique that I was a a little frustrated that so little information is available on them, it seems that quite a strong cottage-industry had built up around drag racing and hand-built, one-off cars were a fairly common sight at the strip.
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 real-life Mach 5 from the 2008 Wachowski film Speed Racer, based on the manga and anime series that was created by Tatsuo Yoshida back in the mid-1960s. The Mach 5 needs no introduction to anyone who grew up in the ’60s, ’70s, or ’80s. Speed Racer was dubbed into English and countless…
The Jeep Commando was directly based on the outgoing Jeepster Commando, however it featured a series of modifications designed to allow it to accommodate the AMC 232 and 258 six-cylinder engines and the 304 V8 engine. The Jeep Commando – C104 American Motors Corporation (AMC) bought Kaiser in 1970, they immediately set about ensuring the…
This is one of the most famous examples of the Vauxhall Firenza in existence, if not the most famous outright. Nicknamed “Old Nail” this is the car that was driven by iconic British driver Gerry Marshall to the Forward Trust Special Saloon Car Championship win 1972 and 1973, the Simoniz Saloon Car Championship in 1974, and…
Against All Odds is a 1971 Datsun documentary about the team’s Trans Am racing efforts with the Datsun 510, known as the Datsun 1600 in many world markets outside of North America. The mighty little Datsun 510 would shock the under 2.5 class in the 1971 and 1972 SCCA Trans Am Championship, beating the previous…
The Apollo 3500 GT is an American/Italian grand tourer that was intended to compete with the likes of Aston Martin, Jaguar, Ferrari, and Maserati. It featured an all-American drivetrain and running gear mostly supplied by Buick, with an American-designed body that was built by Italians. Although we often associate global supply chains with the modern…
The Lamborghini Miura P400 SV was the third, final, and fastest major iteration of the world’s first supercar. The Miura was a design and engineering revelation when it was first shown to the public at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show, the chassis had been shown a year before at the 1965 show in Turin where…
