Yeah, that was alot of money in those days...What excites me these days is this new idea of buying the plans and building your own, following some people's tried techniques, or using their basic plan with your own ideas for say, powerplants...There's an article in the current 'Classic Wings' down here, that has these different Spitfire 'replicas' that have been built ; a chap named Russ Harmuth, based at Calveras County Airport near San Francisco, CA, whose putting a 1,200 hp Allison in his one, is built from plans...There's obviously huge scope for these types of replicas, as most cannot afford an original, but The Movement in general support the addition of these aircraft, as they add flavour and interest to the Warbirds worldwide, over and above restorations...When you've only a coupla dozen Lightnings say, left worldwide, with restorations ongoing on some, it is a new option for those who just have to 'have one', and going by the modified late postwar versions of Lightnings, they could be real performers !...They had one enlarged model capable of 600 mph, didn't they, an XP something?....