SPITFIRE FUSELAGE FETCHES £18,000 AT AUCTION

A Supermarine Spitfire F Mk 22 PK519 fuselage sold for £18,000 at a Dominic Winter Auctioneers sale on 8 October. Peter Arnold had kept it in his garage in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, while working to restore it. The sale price fell below the estimate of £20,000 to £30,000. PK519 was Arnold’s final restoration project before his death in 2025. The auction also included other items from his collection.

Arnold began finding and repairing aircraft remains while he was at school, cycling to crash sites within a 50-mile radius. Aircraft enthusiasts and collectors knew him as “Mr Spitfire”. He recorded around 365 surviving Spitfire and Seafire airframes worldwide. His work on PK519 used replacement panels from other original Spitfires mounted on original wooden formers. The fuselage also has a cockpit window assembly and a Perspex canopy.

The aircraft was ordered on 2 June 1943. It was delivered to RAF Brize Norton on 22 September 1948. It served as a ground target on the Salisbury Plain Ranges. Years later, Arnold regularly wheeled PK519 out of his garage for people to see. Speaking about keeping the Spitfire at home, he said: “I just like it being here.”