I never knew that people raced scooters at the Isle of Man. Until last week when I discovered this footage and became an immediately happier person. I like scooters. I know that this makes me less of a man in the eyes of hard-core motorcycle dudes but I don’t care. There’s a lot to be said for a 50cc smoke-spewing two-stroke, with tires the size of doughnuts and a headlight that gets brighter or dimmer based on how much throttle you pull.
The video was shot on an 8mm Super-8 camera and is 41 years old so it’s a little shaky in parts and a little dark in others, stick with it though, it’s an fantastic glimpse back to a simpler, cooler time.
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.
Showroom Stock racing is exactly what it says on the box, cars are strictly limited to factory fresh condition with no performance modifications allowed. Only safety mods are permitted, typically limited to a roll bar, fire extinguisher, and multi-point driver restraints. This particular race was never televised and you can hear the commentators slipping between…
All surviving examples of the Lancia Stratos are special, but the Björn Waldegård Lancia Stratos stands in a league of its own. This documentary by Patina features David Hanman telling the story of his discovery of the original Björn Waldegård Lancia Stratos in Italy a number of years ago. He describes the difficulties of having…
The Edward Backpack is a new design from the highly-regarded Malle London, a company founded by Robert Nightingale and Jonny Cazzola – a pair of avid motorcyclists who started Malle because they realized no one was making tough, classically-styled motorcycle bags and luggage. Not wanting to be relegated to using either Power Ranger inspired motorcycle…
Armed Forces Rally in Land Rovers is a short film by the team at Patina that covers the Armed Forces Rally Team (AFRT), a racing outfit made up of serving British military personnel competing in lightly modified examples of the UK MOD-specification Land Rover Wolf. The Land Rover Wolf is essentially a Land Rover Defender…
This Husqvarna Model 30 A is a custom motorcycle of sorts – it was built by a privateer racer before Husqvarna offered their own factory-built version – the Model 350DT (DT for “dirt track”). The 1920s and ’30s were an important, formative time for dirt track racing – also called flat track, circle track, and…
The Triumph Spitfire – An Introduction The paradoxical thing about the Triumph Spitfire is that it didn’t spit fire. The original Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft was powered by a huge supercharged Rolls-Royce V12 engine and was fitted with up to eight machine guns so that it truly did spit fire from engine exhausts and guns….
