Rumpler LKW typ RuV29. Delivering news hot off the press

The pursuit of aerodynamics in the early decades of the last century was a phenomenon that extended to trains and trucks, albeit within the limits associated with the nature and purpose of these vehicles. Not many people know that an early high-speed train, called Autorail, was designed and built by Ettore Bugatti. Powered by Bugatti Royale eight-cylinder 12763cc engines, it traveled at an average speed of 130 km/hour,

and for much of the 1930s it provided a successful service between Paris and Strasbourg. The field of aviation, too, had embraced the trend: designers of seaplanes, some never actually built, came up with new shapes whose innovative and harmonious lines inevitably influenced tastes in the automotive sector. Although cars had, for a long time, continued to have an angular, carriage-like appearance, eventually there emerged a growing recognition of the value — esthetic as well as functional —, of the new, more rounded, lines.

The field of aviation, following the advances made in WWI, turned its attention to hefty seaplanes for passenger transport. These were the first expressions of modern power at the service of society