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.
Datsun is a Japanese automobile manufacturer with a fascinating history, they officially dropped the Datsun name in 1986 in favor of Nissan, but the Datsun badge was brought back in 2013 to sell inexpensive cars in developing countries without the risk of diluting the perceived brand value of the parent company. A Brief History of…
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The BMW 2002 Turbo was launched at the 1973 Frankfurt Motor Show to a sea of wide eyes and open mouths. Bayerische Motoren Werke had a well-earned reputation for building executive saloons, albeit executive saloons that were remarkably fun to drive, but this new 2002 Turbo was something altogether different.
Peter Maier At the age of 20, Maier was one of the youngest designers ever hired by General Motors Corporation. After seeing Maier’s work at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, renowned automotive designer and VP of GM, Bill Mitchell, offered Maier a position for their 3-month Summer Program. Halfway through the program Maier was offered…
