- When Tom stumbled across the partial Twin Mustang while doing an appraisal in Ohio, he knew it might well be his only chance to restore such an elusive specimen. And so the project began. He scrounged parts for a second set of controls while fabricating an entire wing and fuselage to replace the missing half of an airplane.
And all that seemed like a simple task compared to sourcing a left-turning Rolls Royce V-12 Merlin engine. One turned up in a shed in Mexico City. Its provenance is a mystery to this day. Another happy accident was locating the unique canopy, which was found in the possession of a woman in Tampa, for some reason.
End-stage WWII was a hell of a thing. People love to talk about "Manhattan Projects" as if the atomic bomb was the be-all end-all budget-buster development; fact of the matter is both the German V2 program and the American B-29 cost 50% more than nukes. This ridiculous plane came about because hot damn we needed something with a long enough range to follow B-29s and we needed it now so uhh... I guess slap two P51s together?
And then we ended up not having to invade Japan by ground and the skies were largely unopposed and Operation Downfall didn't have to happen and the United States avoided so many expected casualties that we're still awarding leftover Purple Hearts from 1945 that we didn't have to use.
Wonder what the total cost ended up being. Guesstimating an average of 25/hr for labor put it at 5 mil just for labor. I imagine that is underestimating it. Then add on all the one off parts that had to be made. One hell of a passion project. I live near Wright Patt AFB and they have one of the largest Air shows in America iirc. Hopefully this makes an appearance.
In my experience, costs on projects like this are loosey-goosey because A) The space is typically donated. "Do you have anywhere we could park an XP-82 for a few years?" "Fuck yeah I own an aircraft hangar and this is my kind of tax writeoff!" B) The labor is typically donated. "Hey semi-retired machinist how would you like to spend your evenings and weekends restoring a rare XP-82? There's cola and popcorn." C) The parts are typically donated, or vastly underreported. "Hey grandma - would you like us to haul that Merlin intake manifold out of your barn where it can find new life again or would you like to go through the hassle of trying to sell it only to discover that the only customer is us anyway?" Which is not to say none of this stuff has value, nor is it to say that there isn't a formidable amount of expertise and effort expended. Generally, however, projects like this start from the viewpoint of "obviously we can't afford to pay what this is worth but won't it be fun" and continue through the viewpoint of "fuck yeah this is fun." It takes a village and nobody restoring warbirds does it without a whole buncha folx donating time money parts and energy.
Just to chime in on this... projects like this get a lot of free parts and skills. The kinds of people that have these parts and skills are not the ones hoarding them to make money off them. They are temporary custodians of something they know will be really important to someone someday, so they hold on to it. The value is in the whole plane. Not in a weird one-off left-sided P51 canopy.