UK Auction House Offers Historic Aircraft Completely Restored
And Airworthy
Bonhams will offer for sale from a private source an airworthy
two-seater Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire aircraft, estimated value
£1.5 million (over $2.13 million USD), on April 20 at the RAF
Museum, Hendon, London.
This will be the second of the iconic World War Two Spitfires
which Bonhams has offered within just seven months. Last September
the auction house sold a non-airworthy 1945 Supermarine
Spitfire for a record price of over $3 million NZ
(£1.1 million Sterling). That plane was a 'Bubble Canopy' MK
XVI, considered by collectors as less desirable.
The company is now selling the first two-seater Spitfire to be
offered at public auction for over 20 years. Painstakingly restored
to airworthiness over a five-year period, the Vickers-Supermarine
Spitfire TR Mark IX is civilian-registered 'G-ILDA'.
Today, this Spitfire is being offered as a freshly-completed
'zero-hours' ground-up restoration to two-seat TR Mark IX
specification; in effect a historic warbird absolutely ready-to-fly
and in truly sparkling flightline condition. Originally it was a
single-seat Mark IX, but the plane was converted to a two-seater in
order to allow for a second pilot or a passenger.
The Supermarine-designed aircraft was built originally by the
British Vickers-Armstrong company in 1944. It was delivered to the
Royal Air Force's No 33 Maintenance Unit at Lyneham in Wiltshire
where it was to be prepared to operational standard for service
delivery. Its original serial number was 'SM520'. The aircraft was
subsequently sold in 1948 to the South African Air Force, in whose
service its operational history presently remains unknown.
Many years later, in the 1970s, it was rediscovered in a Cape
Town scrap yard from which it was rescued by the late building
developer and aviation enthusiast Charles Church, who initiated the
inevitably long process of restoration. Old 'SM 520' (below) was
then sold in 1989 to Alan Dunkerley, who eventually resold it to
the late Paul Portelli in June 2002.
Portelli commissioned Classic Aero Engineering to restore the
machine to its as-original TR Mark IX two-seat trainer
specification. As work progressed upon the historic airframe at
CAE's Thruxton facility in Hampshire, the mighty, supercharged V12
Rolls-Royce Merlin 266 engine was overhauled and
returned to airworthy standard by the
specialist Retro Track & Air concern at Dursley,
Gloucestershire, and fitted with a four-blade Hoffman
propeller.
"We are greatly honored to be entrusted with the sale of such a
distinguished and historic aircraft," said James Knight, MD of
Bonhams Collector's Motoring Department. "As Bonhams is the last of
the great international fine art auction houses to remain under
British management, the sale of an aircraft so linked to the
history and very survival of our nation has enormous significance
for us here."