In 1928 Fritz Von Opel set about building the world’s first rocket powered motorcycle, dubbed the Opel Raketen Motorrad, the bike was designed to use it’s internal combustion engine to reach 75mph at which point the rider would hit a foot pedal, igniting the 6 rear mounted solid rocket boosters.
The plan was to break the current land speed record and reach a top speed of 132mph. Sadly the German authorities vetoed the attempt due to safety concerns. The rocket powered motorcycle went on to complete a number of demonstration runs and was used as a marketing tool by Opel for a number of years.
I was surprised to learn that it isn’t currently owned by Jay Leno.
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 custom Yamaha XSR700 is the work of Hookie Co., a German workshop that have become world-leaders in the field of developing and selling kits that allow people to customise their motorcycles at home using simple hand tools. So far, Hookie Co. have developed multiple Moto-Kits for the BMW R nineT and the new one…
Bob Blair And A Desert Sled Called The P11 The idea for the motorcycle that would become the Norton P11 began in 1966 with Southern California Norton distributor Bob Blair who reasoned that if you took a Matchless G85 CS (Competition Scrambles) frame and squeezed a Norton Atlas 750cc parallel twin engine into it…
This off-road racing motorcycle is the only one like it in the world – it was built in Sweden by a motocross racer as a parts-bin special that was considerably quicker than most of its competition. The Gold Star The bike started life as a BSA Gold Star, widely regarded as having one of the…
This is the new Tamiya 1:12 scale model of the also-new Honda Monkey 125. The new Honda was released in 2018 as a 2019 model, evoking the styling of the much loved Honda “Monkey” Z50 series from the ’60s and ’70s. The new Honda Monkey 125 is designed for adults, though it’s obviously smaller…
The Triumph Bonneville TT Special was designed specifically for American TT Steeplechase racing – interestingly the final specification of the model was developed not in England, but on the West Coast of the USA by Johnson Motors, commonly known as “JoMo”. The Triumph Bonneville TT Special – Competition Sports In the 1960s Triumph had two major importers…
The ZOOZ One is an electric BMX bike that’s 20% larger than a standard BMX bicycle, to ensure that it’ll comfortably accommodate adults from 5′ all the way up to 6’5″. The bike’s design is the work of Pete Kelly, an industrial designer and the former head of design at both SkullCandy and Fossil Watches….
