Englishman Raymond Mays was an avid racer and through a deal with a Bugatti importer he managed to finagle himself a Type 13 to go racing with. He was so obsessed with performance that he had the engine tuned an order of magnitude higher that it could reasonably handle (6,000rpm), which resulted in the above mechanical failure.
His luck wasn’t totally absent though, the 660 lb (300 kg) car remained upright and skidded to a halt just inches from a precipice that would have almost certainly killed him had he gone over.
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.
The Norton Model 30 International is deservedly remembered as one of the most iconic and important motorcycles ever built by the British marque. Norton works team rider Jimmie Guthrie set a slew of new world speed records on a Model 30 International in Montlhery, France at the “concrete bowl” circuit. Jimmie initially set a new one-hour world…
This is Alain Prost’s Ferrari 641 Formula 1 steering wheel from 1990, it was his first season at Ferrari after the reigning World Champion was lured away from McLaren to partner Nigel Mansell – creating one of the greatest driver line-ups of the period. Prost would take 5 victories during the 1990 season with Mansell…
The Porsche 550A Spyder has a well-earned reputation for being a giant killer – it took on and handily defeated far more powerful cars including the likes of the 3-litre Mercedes-Benz 300 SL and Maserati 300S, and the more powerful still 3.5 litre Ferrari 860 Monza. The Porsche 550 and 550A Spyder The Porsche 550 Spyder and…
The day I went in to buy my new Datsun 1600 I was in all probability the most unhappy new car buyer on the face of the earth. That was not to do with the Datsun 1600 being in some way a misery causing car. The reason for the truckload of unhappiness was that I’d been negotiating to buy an Austin-Healey 3000 in a private sale, and the seller had bailed out of the sale at the last minute.
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 Ariel Square Four is one of the most famous names among Britain’s original “big” bikes, standing side-by-side with the likes of Brough Superior and Vincent HRD.
