The world’s leading Spitfire expert has been instrumental in many a project — and travelled the globe in search of airframes
Sometimes we may be accused of placing too great a focus on Spitfire restorations. Indeed, I recall one reader writing in to express the wish that we could go a whole issue without mention of the ‘S’ word. The response to that is that, in so doing, we merely reflect the sheer amount of activity that still surrounds Supermarine’s masterpiece. There remain countless stories about it to be told, and, more particularly, no other warbird type is the subject of so many rebuild and restoration efforts. For decades now, one man has devoted himself — before retirement, purely as a hobby — to chronicling the survivors. Beyond that, his levels of expertise have seen him becoming engaged in a lot of these projects himself, even to the degree of helping seek out new ones. It's taken him to 134 countries. And he has a rare late-mark example in his garage.
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