Why would anyone attempt to build a full-scale, airworthy replica of an airplane that never flew and for which there are no known plans? For a team of designers in Oklahoma, it’s all about recreating one of the most amazing airplanes ever conceived — the Bugatti 100P, a dream of Italian carmaker Ettore Bugatti, who was forced to hide away his creation in a barn in the French countryside at the start of World War II to keep the revolutionary design from falling into the hands of the Nazis.
Scottish engineer John Lawson and former USAF fighter pilot Scotty Wilson are behind the project, dubbed Le Reve Bleu (The Blue Dream), which seeks to recreate the one and only airplane Bugatti ever designed. Bugatti was building it in France for the express purpose of entering an air race of the day known as the Coupe Deutsch. When Germany invaded France in 1940, Bugatti hid the airplane for fear that the Nazis would use his cutting-edge design to build an unstoppable fighter.
