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In October 1937 Caproni and SABCA reached a collaboration agreement in which SABCA would act as a sales agent for Caproni and subsequently the Caproni Ca.135, Ca.310 and Ca.312 had allotted the SABCA type numbers S.45, S.46 and S.48 respectively. Also in the agreement was the design and development of a two-seat fighter-bomber, attack and reconnaissance aircraft to meet specification drafted by the Belgian Ministry of Defense to replace the Fairey Fox. The new design was to be a competitor to the contemporary Fairey design Battle. To the specifications Caproni's chief engineer Cesare Pallavicino drafted the Ca.335 "Maestrale" (North-west wind). The airplane was completed at Caproni´s factory in Ponte San Pietro, Italy and dismantled transported by train to Belgium in June 1939. After reassembling by SABCA the aircraft was displayed at the Salon International at Brussels in July. Thereafter it received the French 860 hp Hispano-Suiza 12Y twelve-cylinder liquid-cooled inverted V-engine, equipment and its weapons, two wing-mounted 0.3 in (7,62 mm) FN-Browning machine guns and an engine-mounted 0.787 in (20 mm) Hispano cannon. The aircraft was entered in the Belgium Registry as a SABCA-Caproni S.47 with the registration OO-ATH on September 19, 1939, it was flown for the first time by SABCA´s Chief Test Pilot Paul Burniat on the same day. On January 13, 1940, it was demonstrated to the Belgian AF, the results were very positive and on option on 24 production aircraft followed. On March 14, 1940, the S.47, accompanied by a SABCA S.40 training aircraft, was flown to the French test center at Orleans-Bricy for evaluation by officers of the French AF. On arrival it was damaged in a landing accident and was not repaired before outbreak of the hostilities in France. Although it was still at Bricy by mid-1943, its fate is unknown.