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.
This 1982 Barry Sheene interview has been largely unseen for the past 36 years, it includes some fantastic quotes from Barry including him remembering a time he had to steal diesel in from a construction site in Munich to get to a Grand Prix in Austria in 1971. It was originally filmed as part of a…
This highly unusual 1933 Chevrolet custom car is thought to be the first complete car built to a design by Alex Tremulis, the legendary American car designer who would go on to design vehicles as varied as the Tucker 48, the Ford X-2000, the Subaru Brat, and even the Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar – a reusable…
The Nissan Skyline GT-R – Godzilla When the name “Nissan Skyline” is mentioned it often brings another name to memory, that of Godzilla, a name given to the seemingly unbeatable 1989 Nissan Skyline GT-R in its 1990 racing guise, the NISMO GT-R, by the Australian motor press after its three consecutive Group A Championship wins…
This Land Rover Series 2A LWB (long wheelbase) has been through a comprehensive nut-and-bolt restoration by the talented team at Cool n’ Vintage for a world famous client – Deus Ex Machina. Impressively this is the 86th Land Rover rebuilt by Cool n’ Vintage over the past few years, the Portuguese company has become…
The Dodge Power Wagon was developed shortly after World War II due largely to popular demand – Dodge had built the almost indestructible 3/4 ton WC series of 4×4 trucks from 1934 onwards, during the war many young American men fell in love with their go-anywhere capabilities, and desired a civilian version for their own use….
There are few vehicles better suited to expedition camper conversion than the original Mercedes-Benz Unimog 404, and this mountain rescue / fire truck is an ideal candidate thanks to its double cab front and tray-back rear. Unimog 404 History The Unimog was conceived in almost exactly the same way as the original Land Rover Series…
