The phrase Spam Can was coined by people brought up on tube and rag tailwheel aircraft in the US, to describe (then) new aircraft with stressed skin aluminum construction, Cessnas mostly at that time. It's an old timey 1950s US expression still used by 'antiquers' in the US, and sometimes others with no idea where it came from.
Spam (the meat product) was introduced just prior to WW II, picked up by the U.S. military for rations, and brought to Britain by US wartime forces. A lot of people who ate those rations were same people flying Cubs in the US circa 1955 ;-)
BTW, I'd suggest that the Tiger Moth was only 'unrivaled as the trainer of her time' if you limit the discussion to trainers for the Commonwealth forces. Otherwise the Jungmann, Boeing Stearman, Ryan PT22, Polikarpov Po-2 etc were all pretty good rivals.
Last edited by Silvaire1; 27th Feb 2015 at 02:04.