Bugatti U - 16 The Bugatti U - 16 was a 16 - cylinder water - cooled double - 8 vertical in - line " U engine " , designed by Ettore Bugatti in 1915 - 1916 and built in France in small numbers . The US Bolling Commission bought a license to build the engine in the US , and small numbers of a slightly revised version were built by the Duesenberg Motor Corporation as the King - Bugatti . Probably about 40 King - Bugattis were made before the end of World War I caused building contracts to be canceled . Design and development . The U - 16 engine was designed to use as many features of a previous Bugatti 8 - cylinder in - line engine as possible . Two eight - cylinder banks were mounted vertically side by side on a common cast aluminium crankcase , each bank driving its own crankshaft . The two crankshafts were geared to and drove a single common airscrew shaft . The shaft was bored to accept a 37 - mm gun barrel , and a clear passage was provided through the crankcase in line with the shaft boring for the same purpose . Each eight - cylinder bank was made up of two cast iron four - cylinder block s ; the crankshafts were each made up of two standard four - cylinder crankshafts joined end to end by a fine taper cone joint . To reduce overall length , these crankshafts were undercut : a typical Bugatti approach , where only their unlimited budget and attention to detail could afford such complexities . A bevel gear at the junction drove a vertical shaft from which the single overhead camshaft and dual magnetos for each bank were driven . Two magnetos were mounted on the outside of each cylinder bank . Each magneto fired all eight cylinders for that bank , driven by bevel gear from the vertical shaft that also drove the bank ' s single overhead camshaft . Each cylinder had two vertical inlet valves and a single vertical exhaust valve , all driven by rocking levers from the camshaft . Four carburettor s each fed four cylinders via a water jacket ed manifold . Each cylinder exhausted into an individual pipe in the space between the cylinder blocks . The whole construction was protected by patents until 1935 . The engine completed ten - hour and fifty - hour endurance tests in 1917 , and the French government purchased a license and arranged for production by Peugeot . During the fifty hour test a US sergeant who was observing the test for the Bolling Commission was killed by the propeller , becoming the first US serviceman to die on active service during World War I . The Bolling Commission and the " Bugatti mission " . In 1917 a US military mission headed by Colonel R . C . Bolling visited Europe to choose aero engines to be produced for the US army air forces . The mission was accompanied by a group of civilian experts headed by the engine manufacturer Howard Marmon . The Bugatti U - 16 aroused interest and Marmon arranged for a license to be purchased for $ 100 , 000 by the US government . In December 1917 a " Bugatti Mission " sailed from Bordeaux for the US to supervise production of the engine at the Duesenberg Motor Corporation of Elizabeth , New Jersey , where the engines were planned to be made . US revisions . The US government engaged one Colonel Charles B . King to redesign the engine for production in the US , much to Ettore Bugatti ' s irritation . Col . King did not approve of some of the detail design of the engine , such as the lack of water cooling around the valve seat s and the close pitch of valves . Accordingly King ' s revisions to the design altered the cylinder head s to provide freer water circulation , better valve cooling , and a slight increase in the distance between valve centres . Post World War I developments . Neither Bugatti ' s U - 16 or the King - Bugatti were particularly successful engines . Few were installed in aircraft , and even fewer actually flew . After World War I no further developments were made in the US , while in France Breguet took over the license and continued development under the designation " Type U - 24 " . In 1920 Breguet showed a " quadrimoteur " made of two Type U - 24s coupled together , with provision to declutch any cylinder bank to enable it to be stopped while the other three units continued to provide power . Engines on display . The Musee de l ' air at Chalais - Meudon , 2 rue des Vertugadins , Meudon ( just outside the Paris boundaries in the south west direction ) holds a French U - 16 engine and two Breguet - Bugatti engines . A King - Bugatti can be seen at the National Air Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D . C . , and another in the USAF museum at the Wright - Patterson AF Base at Fairborn , Ohio . The Auburn - Cord - Duesenberg Museum in Auburn , Indiana also has a King - Bugatti engine on display in their Hall of Technology