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 Ducati Sport 1000 is the work of AJ Pushkarna, a Systems Engineer by day and custom motorcycle builder by night. AJ has previously built a number of bikes including one of our favourite BMW scrambler customs of all time – a retro R100 dual sport that’s about as close to aesthetically perfect as it’s…
The Brütsch Mopetta is one of the most beloved microcars from the era of the tiny, petrol-friendly, post-WWII runabouts. The fame of the Mopetta far outweighs its actual production numbers, just 14 were built and some estimates suggest only 5 survived to the modern day. The Brütsch Mopetta It’s almost certain that the popularity of the little…
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 the original prototype of the Ferrari 308 GTB Group B Michelotto – it was the first one built and was a proof of concept that would prove remarkably successful in competition in its own right. Anyone familiar with either Ferrari or Group B rally is likely to raise an eyebrow when confronted with…
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…
The AMC Gremlin and Modified Stock Car racing are a match made in 1970s oval track heaven. The Gremlin was small and cheap, with a long hood area covering an engine bay that could accommodate far larger engines than its sub-compact car competition. The Kammback design of the Gremlin was an added bonus, as many…
