Mankind has often been capable of creating some truly magnificent and marvellous machines. All sorts of gadgets, gizmos and modern marvels have been created over the years to help with our endeavours. Some of these are clever, others defying standard logic, all are fantastic and deserve to be celebrated.
To do just that, we’ve put together a glorious collection of some of the most fantastic examples of engineering and machinery ever created by man.
A tiny tractor
From the gargantuan to the incredibly tiny. This titchy little thing is aVaughan Flex Tred. A tiny little garden tractor from the 1940s. Ideal for various tasks around your garden where the land (or bank account) wasn’t quite big enough for a full-blown tractor.
It’s not only great to look at, but alsofairly cool to see in action as well.
A naked CT machine
This is a CT scanner, also known as a computerised axial tomography scanning machine. It uses multiple x-ray scans used at once to capture different angles of the human body. We know this technology exists and how impressive it is, yet somehow it’s far more impressive when seen without the usual housing when you can witness all the internal workings.
This is even more impressive when the scanner is powered on and spinning -as seen in this video.
The world’s last commercial sailing ship
This magnificent sea vessel is the Pamir - the world’s last commercial sailing ship. The ship was built in 1905 and continued sailing the seas until it tragically sunk in 1957 in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. It is thought that the ship was caught in Hurricane Carrie and flooded to the point that it could not be righted and sunk. Only six of the 86 crew members survived.
The Pamir was one of the most famous sailing ships of the time though and was the last commercial sailing ship to make it round Cape Horn in the last 1940s.
McLaren F1 engine maintenance
The McLaren is no doubt an awesome car. A brilliant piece of modern automotive engineering. It’s equally as fantastic when viewed in this form - with its engine removed for maintenance.
Proper servicing of this supercar not only takes some time, but results in some brilliant images of the car invarious states of undress.
A jet engine at full afterburner
This is anF-15 Pratt & Whitney F100 engineat full afterburner being tested by the US military. The power you may see in this image represents around 30,000 lbs of thrust and some incredible heat and power too. A marvel of engineering.
The Beluga Airbus
This is a version of a wide-body Airbus airliner that’s been designed to carry oversized cargo. It’s officially a Super Transporter but is more commonly referred to as Beluga after the whale that it resembles. Because what’s a more logical thing to have flying in the sky than a whale?
This weirdly wonderful looking plane had its first flight in 1995 and has been used multiple times since then to transport all sorts of bulky things including various space vehicles. We just think it looks fantastically cheerful. It is brilliantly designed though andits nose even opens to let out its impressive cargo.
A music typewriter
This is a musical typewriter, a relic of an era when music was typed before computers were involved.
Plate or hand engraving was the usual favoured method and these music typewriters did not become popular until the mid-1900s. Even then they often produced low-quality results which didn’t gain much favour and as a result, they never saw widespread use.
The massive excavator
This is a massive bucket-wheel excavator known as Bagger 288. You’ve probably seen pictures of this thing before as it’s incredibly huge. So much so that was once the heaviest land vehicle in the world weight in at over 13,500 tons.
It cost a whopping $100 million to engineer and was designed toremove overburdenand help with the excavation of coal. It can manage around 240,000 tons of coal a day, which says something about how impressive a machine it is.
Jet engine snowblowers
The winter months are fairly harsh in Russia. Temperatures fall to ridiculous levels and the snow is a constant menace. The Russian people have plenty of solutions though, includingthese glorious machines.
These trucks have MiG-15 jet engines mounted to the front of them that are used to melt and blow snow out of the way. Perfect for clearing runways, roads or important areas. This idea has also been used elsewhere around the world and in our view is a great way to recycle old technology for new uses.
Just a crane delivery
We often take cargo transport for granted. Boats come and go taking various cargo across our oceans on a day-to-day basis and most of us don’t even know what’s going on.
Just look at this cargo ship though, casually transporting 300-foot tall cranes like its nothing. Amazing engineer and even more impressive packing.
