Tulsa, OK — When we think of Bugatti, we generally think of classic sportscars like the T13 and modern day supercars such as the all-conquering Veyron. However, back in the late 1930s, Ettore Bugatti also set out to build racing aircraft. In 1937 he began construction on a radical machine that had a swept-forward wing design, a twin-V tailplane, and twin contra-rotating propellers powered by two Bugatti straight-eight engines. Unfortunately, the Second World War broke out just before the aircraft was completed and Bugatti had to flee Paris, taking his creation with him. Today a group of dedicated enthusiasts called the “Bugatti 100P Project” are recreating Bugatti’s dream and building a replica that, unlike the original, will soon take to the skies.
Dubbed the 100P, Bugatti had intended to build and fly it against the best aircraft of the time, such as the 469 mph (755 km/h) Messerschmitt Me 209 Working largely from donations, the international team of enthusiasts at the Bugatti 100P Project have had to create almost every single part on the machine As the restored shell of the 100P is too fragile and rare to even contemplate being flown, a group of enthusiasts have decided to recreate this amazing aircraft from scratch The original 100P airframe now sits in an aircraft museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
As such, the 100P was then fitted with two Type 50 engines behind the cockpit driving a propeller each in a complex arrangement where the front engine was slanted to the right and joined to a drive shaft at the firewall behind the pilot, which then passed by the pilot’s right elbow. The second engine was slanted to the left, in a similar arrangement to the first. Just past the pilot’s feet, the two drive shafts merged at a gearbox and then connected to the two contra-rotating propellers.
The technologically-advanced Bugatti 100P was built – of all places – on the second floor of a furniture factory in Paris. Despite its humble surroundings, the 100P was constructed like any other finely-tuned Bugatti creation and possessed elements that predated many innovations not to be seen in allied fighter planes until the 1940s. Had the development been allowed to continue, and the craft built as a military machine as the French government of the time had mooted, the 100P may well have also made a supremely fast, highly maneuverable fighter easily capable of overcoming even the fastest German aircraft of the time.
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