Updated 30 September, 2012
Early in WW2, Spain had made a deal with Nazi Germany for the rights and drawings and 25 airframes of Messerschmitt Bf109 G2 fighters, to be built in Spain with Germany supplying running gear and guns, which in the end Germany failed to do as they were busy fighting with the rest of the world.
Not to let a few engines and propellers stop them from fitting out their fighter force, they cobbled on a few Hispano Suiza engines and VDM props and flew by 1944, but was never satisfactory. The Hispano installation was finally sorted out by 1951, and the aircraft worked reasonably well, although the tail was designed for a counter clockwise turning propeller, and the Hispano ran clockwise, but this mostly was only a problem on taking off. The motor was also an upright v design putting the exhausts higher on the nose, the Messerschmitt's original engine being an inverted Daimler Benz.
By 1954, the Spaniards acquired some Rolls Royce Merlin engines which were now surplus, and this engine was just the ticket to make the Spanish fighter a performer again. Ironically, the first few Bf 109s built by the Germans flew with Rolls Royce Kestrel engines, the forerunner to the famous Merlin, as German engines weren't ready. So the Buchon was just a 109 that had returned to it's roots. This version, equipped with 20mm cannon and rockets, had possibly been used in Spanish territories in Africa, where there was no competition for the outdated, but still formidable fighter. The Spanish Buchon also appeared in the movies where the visual differences apparently didn't matter, starring in "Memphis Belle", and "Tuskegee Airmen". The plane was also used as, of all things, a Hawker Hurricane in "Battle of Britain".
Following video shows a Buchon in action, from Auldm's channel, Wings
