Interesting stuff. I always thought it was a cool looking plane but never read much about it. Turns out it was the only fighter built during the entire war. Pretty amazing power. Started off with the 1000hp Rolls Royce V12 and later moved up to a 2300hp model. Imagine it was this easy to gain access to your car engine:
I was researching two of the engines - the original power plant was the RR Merlin V12:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Merlin
Quote:
The Merlin remains most closely associated with the Spitfire and Hurricane, although the majority of the production run was for the four-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bomber. A series of rapidly applied developments, brought about by wartime needs, markedly improved the engine's performance and durability. Starting at 1,000 hp for the first production models, most late war versions produced just under 1,800 hp, and the very latest version as used in the de Havilland Hornet over 2,000 hp.
One of the most successful aircraft engines of the World War II era, some 50 marks of Merlin were built by Rolls-Royce in Derby, Crewe and Glasgow, as well as by Ford of Britain at their Trafford Park factory, near Manchester.
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Anybody have an idea of what they mean by "...some 50 marks of Merlin were built ..." Maybe it's some industrial quantity term.