COBI Supermarine Spitfire Mk. II Set 5778

COBI's Supermarine Spitfire Mk. II is a 1:32 model of the British fighter, built from 384 blocks, with a pilot figure.

The factory that could not build a Spitfire

The Mk. II was the first Spitfire built entirely away from Supermarine's works in Southampton. Every one of them came from Castle Bromwich near Birmingham, a huge new shadow factory run by Lord Nuffield's Morris motor company.

It started badly. The management ignored Supermarine's tooling and drawings in favor of its own, and by May 1940 — when the factory had promised sixty Spitfires a week — it had not delivered a single one. The new Minister of Aircraft Production, Lord Beaverbrook, took it away from Nuffield and handed it to Vickers-Armstrongs, Supermarine's parent company. Ten Mk. IIs followed in June 1940, and by September the factory was turning out more than fifty a month.

The timing mattered. That same September the Supermarine works in Southampton were bombed and production there stopped for a while. Castle Bromwich went on to build almost 12,000 Spitfires, more than half of all that were made.

In the COBI range

Set 5868 is the Spitfire Mk. I that preceded it, and set 5764 the Mk. IXe at this 1:32 scale. Set 5725 is the Mk. VB that replaced the Mk. II on the Castle Bromwich line.

Specifications

Pieces: 384 · Figures: 1 · Scale: 1:32 · Age: 7+