Crazy Planes That Car Makers Built

The company that would go on to become Gulfstream and build some of the world’s fastest and most beautiful business jets also built some of the most important fighters of WWII, along with numerous other military designs, several of them supersonic. They also built a gaggle of these postal vehicles, which we’re guessing, despite their […]

The maker of some of the most elegant auto designs ever built a plane that’s remarkably beautiful in its own right, the Model 100. The racer, which didn’t fly until a reproduction took to the air in the 2010s. The only example was destroyed in a fatal crash in 2016. An example is on display […]

The company famous for its boxy little runabouts built some of the world’s prettiest aircraft, ever, including some biplane fighters that bridged the pre-war and WWII era.

The best airliner in the world before the Douglas DC-3 took over, the Ford Tri-Motor, was built Ford Tough. Another foray into aviation wasn’t as successful. The Flivver was a single-seat “everyman’s plane,” and first flew in the late 1920s. Charles Lindbergh flew and called it “the worst aircraft” he ever flew. Soon after the […]

The HondaJet was Plane & Pilot’s inaugural Plane of the Year a few years ago. With best in class speed and a user-friendly flight deck, high marks to Honda for this light jet beauty. The company also builds cars, including this NSX, which would fit very nicely into the corner of an airplane hangar, we’re thinking.

The Mitsubishi MU-2 turboprop twin has had a complicated past, true, what with an FAA investigation into its checkered safety record, but its fans are fanatical about the speed and economy of the plane. Of course, the historical Mitsubishi built the best known Japanese fighter of World War II, the Zero.

The British car maker, which specialized in luxury cars like this Siddeley Coupe, went on to build jets, too, including the first operational vertical takeoff jet, the Hawker-Siddeley Harrier.

The makers of the coolest scooters in the world, not to mention urban scooter cabs like this, made some pretty slick planes, too. Its most recent, the P.180 Avanti, is a super-fast twin-turboprop canard pusher, which has recently been sidelined and put up for sale.

Speaking of pretty planes, this world-class maker of automobile tires also built the gull-wing Corsair carrier fighter during World War II, along with some more rotund lighter-than-air ships, as well.

The makers of the coolest scooters in the world, not to mention urban scooter cabs like this, made some pretty slick planes, too. Its most recent, the P.180 Avanti, is a super-fast twin-turboprop canard pusher, which has recently been sidelined and put up for sale.