Ever wondered ... ?

Ever wondered what would happen if you put a Rolls Royce Merlin engine from a Spitfire into a car? Well, wonder no more, because someone insane enough to even think about it has actually done it ...

This insane individual is called John Dodd, and he fitted this monstrous car with a Rolls Royce grill, complete with 'Spirit of Ecstasy' hood ornament. As you might expect, Rolls Royce wasn't too happy with that, and dragged John Dodd to court. You can read more about what happened here.

Some years on, and the car is now in Britain, with a new owner, and officially registered as a Rolls Royce coupe. Happy to see that the ugly mustard yellow has been replaced with much more fitting grey tones!

Feast your eyes on the Spitfire engine under the bonnet (this picture was taken when the car still had its mustard yellow livery):

And if you want to hear this 27-litre V12 Spitfire engine start up, and see this 'Beast' being driven, check out this video:

Totally utterly insane ...

Tr.8 Spitfire

Following my kit of a Spit in civil service, I picked up another kit to build, this time of a Tr.8 two-seater.

Decided to build and paint it in the colours of the 1949 G-AIDN version.

It turns out this Spitfire (MT818) has a long and varied history. Built in 1944, it was converted to a two-seater training plane in 1946, and was also used for air racing between 1947 and 1959. For more information, see here.

And this Spit still flies today! Last year, it got a completely new livery, with USAAF markings, and is now known as Lady Ellen III.

'Aces High' Spitfire

This blog post is about a rather unusual Spitfire. One which never flew, and basically never really existed .... 

Curious? Read on!

The heavy metal band Iron Maiden brought out the single Aces High in 1984. The song is about the experience of an RAF pilot in the Battle of Britain, and the artwork of the single shows the band's mascots, Eddie the Head, in the cockpit of a Spitfire.

During live performances of the song, a large model of a Spitfire is often suspended over the podium. 

Turns out there is a 1/72 model of this 'Aces High' Spitfire! Of course I had to add that one to my collection, even though it's a lot more expensive than the other models in the collection so far ... 

Note that the identification markings are imaginary; there never was a Spitfire with registration P2210 or squadron code FT-L in the RAF.

And, of course, this blog post wouldn't be complete without a video of the Iron Maiden's Aces High song:

National Spitfire Monument

Southampton being the 'home of the Spitfire', there are ambitious plans for creating a National Spitfire Monument in the city, visible from afar.

The centrepiece of the monument is a 1.5 scale model of a Spitfire, soaring into the sky.

Very recently, the first tangible evidence of 'work in progress' on the monument was displayed in public, at Southampton Airport to be precise: a 1/40 scale model of the final monument.

Needless to say that I quickly popped into the departure area of the airport ....

The base will feature roundels of all air forces that flew Spitfires.

It will look absolutely fantastic once the actual monument is in place; can't wait to see it!!

Spit in civil service

Nearly all my Spitfire models are diecast models. The one exception is the model of a Spitfire 'Floatplane', which is a plastic kit, but which I got off eBay fully built.

From there, it's one small step to looking at plastic kits of Spitfires, see if I can find Spitfire versions that are not available as diecast models, and then build them from scratch, right?

So here's the first one: a model of a Mk IX Spitfire with civil livery.

And here is the completed model:

In addition to what's stated on the box, here is more on the history of the airplane.

It was fun to go back to building model kits again, something I used to do quite a lot many many years ago. There will no doubt be more!

Spitfire Lighthouse

Over the years, Southampton has been livened up by a number of 'sculpture trails', and several of them had Spitfire-inspired sculptures! Another trail, Light the South, recently featured 40 large (8ft) and 40 small sculptures of lighthouses. And, sure enough, one of the lighthouses was inspired by the Spitfire!

I wonder what will be next ...

'Tolly Hello' Spitfire

'Tolly Hello' was a Mk IX Spitfire (serial number MK210) which was sent to the USAAF for testing the fitting of drop fuel tanks. Its nickname comes from the rather distinctive nose art!

The model I managed to get my hands on had the option of fitting a normal propellor as well as a plastic disc, which simulates a rotating propellor. As none of my other models has this option, I decided to fit the disc rather than the fixed propellor.

And here is a picture of the nose art on the real 'Tolly Hello' Spit.