Dan Trent: Reaching for the stars in an alloy‑bodied V12 classic

Actually the sky isn’t the limit in this one. And while a 250 GTO fits the above search criteria my find this week is, in relative terms, a bit of a bargain. Indeed, given classic Ferrari values I could almost fund an entire squadron for what one GTO would cost. 

The picture will have given the game away but, yes, I’ve found a Spitfire for sale. Just down the road from Goodwood too, as it happens. The plane spotters among you will already be harrumphing that the example in the lead image is a later Mk.IX and not a Mk.V like the one I’ve found. But when you see ‘my’ Spitfire’s condition you’ll excuse me resorting to a stock photo, given it is currently little more than a collection of parts.

An American site listing the aircraft for sale says you could acquire it as-is for just shy of half a million. Seems it’s actually here in the UK though, listed for sale with Sussex-based Aero Vintage who say that to get it airworthy would require “between £2.25m and £2.75m plus VAT, depending on specification”. As if it were a question of what leather trim you’d go for or which of your lady friends you’d like depicted as nose art on the engine cowling.  

And not whether you’d maintain its originality as a tropical spec Mk.Vc or ‘backdate’ it to a European theatre Mk.Vb, the like of which operated from our own Westhampnet setting.

RAF Westhampnett (as Goodwood was known) in the era immediately following the Battle of Britain. Choice is yours, as the advert promises. Just be prepared to hand over a £190,000 deposit to buy into the project, sign a restoration contract with provision for (probably substantial) monthly invoices and set aside a £150,000 final payment once complete to take possession of the permit to fly. 

All this would take at least two years, giving me time to, you know, learn to fly and everything. I’ll work on the assumption it’s a bit more involved than the “Spring chicken to Shitehawk in one easy lesson” Robert Shaw famously gives one hapless rookie in the Battle of Britain film but you never know. All together now, “Takatakatakatakataka!” 

In its original configuration, EF545 was fitted with the deeper ‘chin’ of tropical-spec Spitfires and flown by RAF out of Kiriwina airfield in Papua New Guinea. Its operational career didn’t last long, the Spitfire suffering a wheels-up landing in November of 1943, just seven months after it was shipped to Australia. Its remains were left at Kiriwina before it was recovered in the mid-70s, eventually returning to the UK in 2001 nearly 60 years after it first left the Westland production line in Yeovil. A project was started and a new fuselage constructed, Aero Vintage dismissively describing it as “neither accurate or airworthy” but there being sufficient original parts to make a full restoration to flying condition viable.  

Indulge me in some geekery here but if you were to have a Spitfire a Mk.V would be a nice one to own. There have been later bubble cockpit examples in the market and these are faster and more potent. Short of a Battle of Britain spec Mk.I this would be the one to have though, the Mk.V more powerful, better-armed and more capable but still relatively early in Spitfire development and maintaining the purity of the original design. With its three-bladed propeller and the smaller, more rounded tail fin I think it’s one of the prettiest versions too. 

And able to turn more heads on arrival at Goodwood than a GTO costing 10 times as much. Tally ho!