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.
In the 1960s both Steve McQueen and Evel Knievel owned Triumph TT Specials, McQueen often raced his Triumphs with notable success, and Knievel used his in the life and death world of stunt jumping. The most famous Triumph TT Special was undoubtably the example used by Evel Knievel for the Caesar’s Palace fountain jump on New…
This series of 26 images were taken in March 1993 by Matt Thompson and his family, on a special birthday trip to the Britten workshop near Christchurch in 1993. These photographs been completely unseen by anyone other than Matt and his family for the past 26 years. 1993 was a big year for the John…
The Woodill Wildfire is considered by many to be the first production fibreglass sports car in the world, it was very nearly mass-produced by Willys as the “Willys Wildfire” and mass-produced as a contemporary of the first Chevrolet Corvette. If it hadn’t been for Kaiser Motors buying Willys in 1953 the history of the company…
The Indian Powerplus V-twin powered the company’s board track racers to victories right across the country. The engine was significantly more advanced than the inlet-over-exhaust engines used in previous Indian motorcycles, with side valves and an eye-watering (for the time) rating of 16 hp. The mere suggestion that you could have 16 horsepower in a…
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…
This is an original Water Sprite Outboard Motor from 1907, just 5 of these are known to survive in the world and this restored example is possibly the best example of them all. Many of the parts you’d expect to find on a modern outboard engine are all present on the Water Sprite – it’s…
