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Swandean is part of my home town of Worthing & not far from where I'm sitting now. I remember when my brother & I were young & then living at Lancing, a couple of miles to the east, our father sometimes took us to see the Swandean Spitfire. This wasn't at Shoreham Airport but parked on the forecourt of the Swandean Garage. Of course, we thought it was wonderful to have our own local Spitfire that we could see at any time we wished for the price of a short bus ride. One day it disappeared & I often wondered what happened to it. While reading an old copy of Aeroplane this week I saw it mentioned which reminded me of the whole fascinating story. I've copied some of the following from this site. http://www.spitfiremk2a.co.uk/my-history-sl721.html

In February 1955 this Spitfire (Mk XVI SL721) was bought for

A very pretty and VIP Spitfire is SL721. Not many could have been personal transport to 5-Star RAF Officers...

There are lots of good photos of it around (in various shades of blue!), including one I seen in several publications (including Ken Ellis' excellent "Wrecks and Relics" series - I recommend the "Album" edition) of the Spit in Worthing...

Anyone not interested in Spits is a philistine
Thanks for the links Doug, I had heard of this Spit on a garage forecourt but didn't know much more about it

It was rumoured & still believed today that the engine of SL721 was used to power the 'Swandean Spitfire Special' racing car. As Valerie Martin discovered, this is untrue & just another local myth. The Merlin-engined car was last heard of in St. Louis.

Great story that Doug. By chance my latest Spitfire model is wearing the same markings as SL721 in that link


The real AU-J was TB886 and was flown by Flt.Lt. Willian Harper of 421 (Canadian) Squadron at the very end of the war in Europe. It spent its short wartime operational life as a fighter bomber.

Great story that Doug. By chance my latest Spitfire model is wearing the same markings as SL721 in that link

Very nice Roger. It's a small world.