Bugatti 100P Airplane Reconstructed, Will Fly Again After Public Debut

From Autoblog:

Bugatti has been building some of the fastest vehicles in the world since 1909, but its brief history with airplane racing is less well known to many fans. It started in the '30s when founder Ettore Bugatti believed he could build a plane to win the Deutsch de la Merthe Cup Race. He worked on a design called the 100P that never flew. At least, it never flew until a group of Bugatti fanatics called Le Reve Blue decided to build an exact replica of the plane at the Mullin Automotive Museum's Art of Bugatti exhibition. The plane will make its public debut on March 25 in Oxnard, California. The 100P was on the cutting edge for 1930s aircraft. It used two Bugatti-built 4.9-liter, straight-eight engines with 450 horsepower each to power two counter-rotating props mounted in tandem at the front of the plane. It boasts an estimated top speed of around 500 miles per hour. Other amazing features for the time included the V-shaped tail, forward-pitched wings and a zero-drag cooling system.

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