A late friend of mine, who was dealing in airplanes in that era, bought a few of those. He sold them pretty quickly, though, to get a Twin Beech, I think-- something that was useful!
I love nicely restored warbirds for sure. But I'm also really interested in the history of these planes, post-WWII and before they were considered really valuable. This plane typifies that era. How cool is THAT?? https://vintageaviationnews.com/warbirds-news/n51t-one-of-the-last-civilian-painted-p-51-mustangs-for-sale.html Oh, a Mustang painted just like this one can be seen in the first few minutes of the Walter Matthau movie "A New Leaf", which also includes a nice Ferrari 275 GTB. Check it out!
I knew ace, Larry Blumer, who shot down 5 FW 190's in 15 minutes in what has been identified as the biggest dog fie in WW2 with over 55 airplanes involved. 45 FW190's were destroyed, JG6 was essentially wiped out, they lost 17 pilots (one was the Luftwaffe Ace), and never regained operational status.Blumer was captain of two P-38 squadrons and a pretty tough character.
Image Unavailable, Please Login I have been tracking P-51 values since 1973. After graduating in finance, I devised a business plan to obtain one. My research showed me that even with an 11 % loan, the value was rising so fast that I would at least be equal financially, which at the time was a great rate. My goal was to buy one by age 47, but things went so well that I was able to buy one at age 27. I paid $550,000 in 1989 for the 1984 reserve grand champion Warbird at Oshkosh. Worry Bird is likely worth 3.3 now 36 years later. Maybe not the best investment but we are only here once. Other considerations were the chance of losing my medical as age increases and the possibility to spend quality time with WW2 veterans. Among many other opportunities I was able to fly in a four ship with Chuck Yeager and Bud Anderson in 1995. My formation training was led by a WW2 pilot Hess Bomberger, I think it was 1993. The guys who waited were not able to experience this, as almost all of the WW2 pilots are gone.
I rechecked my figures and Blumer's outfit attacked 55 FW-190's. The dog fight had between 60 to 70 fighters shooting at each other. The Luft lost 45 airplanes , 18 damaged, and 18 pilots. Seven P-38's were lost.
He does last I heard. It is essentially his sons. Steve took himself out of the cockpit a number of years ago. It has been repainted in another scheme. https://www.mustangsmustangs.com/p-51/survivors/serial/44-72777 Several years ago I was with him at Reno and one of the other pilots came over with surplus sales documents for a number of P51s, some of which were there racing. Most were in hundreds of dollars. For sale too were crated rebuilt Merlins for just a couple hundred dollars.
