Two-seat Spitfire auctioned for 1.7M pounds
Yeah, American keyboards don't have pounds-sterling signs...
Anyway, I'm surprised that five days after the record-setting auction by Bonhams in the UK, not a single PPRuNe poster has commented on the sale of an airworthy Spitfire Mk. IX two-seater (15 hours on the Hobbs...) for the equivalent of about $2,500,000.
Is it that--like me--everybody feels this thing is an illegitimate phony not worthy of attention, having been converted to two-seater status during the rebuild a few years ago? It never was anything but a single-seater during its brief service with the RAF and then the South African Air Force.
Being involved in classic-car collecting, I can't imagine how anybody could be taken in by the mainstream (and aviation) media's hysteria about it being a "rare" and "historic" airplane, neither of which it is. Certainly not historic, since it has zero provenance and certainly never flew in combat--its history is otherwise utterly unknown--and rarity is questionable, what with some 50 bitsa Spits flying and another 150, perhaps, in various stages of "restoration." In terms of rarity, these numbers would put it right up there with a large variety of Ferraris and Porsches of no unusual value.
As far as I can tell, it's a cute toy, rebuilt in a way that allows somebody to take their girlfriend for rides while he makes like the ace of the base, but as a historical artifact it's a joke.
What am I missing?