In the 1930’s, Ettore Bugatti worked day and night to create his 900bhp, 500mph racing plane. This 100P was going to be Bugatti’s meal ticket in the Deutsch de le Merthe Cup, a race of the skies over Paris.
The original plan was to build a plane with two 4.9-litre engines that each got a whopping 450 horsepower to build a plane that could easily fly 500mph and beat the competition.
By June 1940, though, World War Two put a damper on Bugatti’s plans. Instead of letting his plane get into the hands of the Germans, he hid it away. After the war, it was still intact, but nowhere near ready to fly.
John Lawson and Simon Birney of California decided to put their own mark on the project in 2009. After building a replica of Bugatti’s 100p that included five patents Bugatti earned for his original design, they have officially finished the project that took so much of Bugatti’s time.
The plane will fly on its first trip on March 25 in Oxnard, California. The plane’s unique shape, including a V-shaped tail, wings that pitch forward, and a cooling system that gets zero-drag is bound to draw out flying aficionados from all over.
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