A closer look
Wealthy aristocrat Louis Zborowski found early 1920s race cars dreadfully boring, so he started buying massive World War I aero engines and bolting them onto primitive car chassis. His most famous creations, ironically dubbed the "Chitty Bang Bangs," featured 23-liter Maybach zeppelin engines that deafened spectators and terrifyingly overpowered their flimsy brakes and wooden wheels. He regularly hit speeds exceeding 100 mph long before aerodynamic stability was a known concept. Zborowski lived exactly as you’d expect a man driving a land-bound blimp would, dying in a spectacular crash at Monza in 1924.
