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Historic Spitfire Fuselage Fetches Over £20,000 at Auction
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Auction of the PK519 Fuselage
Dominic Winter Auctioneers sold the wooden-frame fuselage of a Supermarine Spitfire F Mk. XXII, serial PK519, for more than £20,000. The aircraft component had spent over twenty years stored in a garage before entering the auction block.
Peter Arnold’s Role in the Project
The fuselage was the final restoration effort of the late Peter Arnold, a renowned aviation enthusiast who died at age 83 in 2025. Known locally as “Mr Spitfire,” Arnold travelled worldwide to document and preserve the more than 260 surviving Spitfires. He assembled the PK519 fuselage from replacement panels taken from other original Spitfires, mounting them on the original wooden formers and fitting a cockpit window assembly and Perspex canopy.
Auction Lot Details
The PK519 fuselage represented Arnold’s seventh major project. Its construction combined authentic wooden formers with salvaged metal panels, creating a hybrid artifact that retained the aircraft’s original structural geometry while incorporating parts from other Spitfires. The lot’s rarity stemmed from both its provenance—directly linked to Arnold’s lifelong preservation work—and its physical condition after decades of storage.
Official Comments from the Auction House
Dominic Winter Auctioneers highlighted the piece’s uniqueness, noting that such a historically significant component rarely appears for sale. Henry Meadows emphasized the lot’s appeal to collectors and museums seeking tangible links to the World War II era. No buyer was identified in the reporting.
Verbatim Quote
- “The Seafire Mk. XV PR422 at Meiktila Air Force base, Myanmar. It was one he always wanted to ‘tick’ off,” — John Sanderson.