Lotus Goes Turbo is a 30 minute documentary covering the Lotus Formula One teams switch from naturally aspirated to turbo V6 engines in the 1983 season. It’s a fantastic little piece of history, seeing engineers designing a Formula One car on a drafting table with a pencil and slide rule is a reminder of just how brilliant these guys actually were.
As Formula One will be returning to turbo engines next year, this film is both a look back and a look forward. The shift to forced-induction engines has been met with derision from many sectors of the F1 world but I’m looking forward to it – there’s nothing like a major shake up in the regulations to knock top teams down a peg and reward mid-level teams who are willing to take a few innovative risks.
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.
Editor’s Note: This film starts with 2 minutes of skiing and ice skating footage, stick with it and it’ll all make sense in the end. Riding the Film is a 1937 Chevrolet instructional film that does an excellent job of showing how motor oil is used throughout your engine for lubrication. There are a series…
The legendary NCR workshop played a significant role in the early competition life of Ducati, perhaps most famously they built the special 900cc race bike that Mike Hailwood piloted to his seemingly impossible comeback win at the the 1978 Formula One TT at the Isle of Man. NCR was founded in 1967 as a small motorcycle…
This is an original Rickman Metisse-Suzuki 500 Titan, one of the earlier Japanese-engined road racing Rickmans. The combination of reliable, high-output Japanese motorcycle engines with beautifully engineered British frames and suspension led to some of the best handling bikes of the era. The Rickman Brothers Derek and Don Rickman were already world class motocross racers…
The Technique of Motor Racing by Piero Taruffi is the book that all other instructional motor racing books are measured against. It was written by Taruffi, nicknamed the “Silver Fox”, in 1959 after he retired from motor racing in 1957 following a promise to his wife to retire once he’d won the Mille Miglia. He…
The Sabra Sport GT built holds the unique distinction of being the only production Israeli sports car ever made, it was built by Autocars Co. Ltd – Israel’s first domestic car manufacturer.
Austrian race driver and engineer Wolfgang Denzel began building his own cars in the years shortly after WW2 using left over VW Kübelwagen chassis fitted with wood-framed bodies. By the late 1940s he was producing his own bespoke metal bodies using VW engines and running gear, oftentimes his vehicles would find themselves competing with rather…
