The Only Thing Better Than a Mustang Mach-1 Is This P-51 Mustang

Legend says in the shadows of World War II Britain’s Royal Air Force was desperately looking for a new plane to strengthen its fighter units. It was 1939 and the British Purchasing Commission approached North American Aviation to have them build the Curtiss P-40 model.

Instead of doing that the U.S. company asked them if they wanted an all-new aircraft, and the prototype NA-73 was born in 1940, just 102 days after the Brits said yes. Of course, the U.S. Army took notice and ordered its own prototypes for evaluation – labeled XP-51 (the XP stands for experimental pursuit).

The British were the ones that nicknamed their new fighter the Mustang – a name soon adopted by the Americans as well. Interestingly enough, the P-51 became a universal success only after some trial and error. From the get-go it had fantastic range and displayed wonderful performance at low altitudes.

Apparently, it was a Rolls-Royce test pilot who came to the conclusion that North American’s P-51 Mustang needed the company’s own Merlin engine (it was initially built with the Allison engine of the older P-40) to perform just as well at higher altitudes. And it was only when a major American luxury automaker became involved that it achieved universal acclaim in its P-51D variant.

Fate ordained that Packard Motor Car Company became the provider of the Packard V-1650-7 engine – the U.S.-licensed version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin. And thus, the all-mighty Allied P-51D fighter-bomber was born – manufactured in over 15,000 units and credited (not alone, of course) with providing air superiority for the bombing missions that brought Germany down to its knees from 1944 onwards.

Thanks to its advanced-for-the-era use of a laminar-flow airfoil wing design, low drag airframe and the ability to carry lots and lots of fuel (internally but also on external tanks) the P-51D became the aircraft of choice for escorting bombers over enemy territory. After all, it had a range of more than 2,000 miles (3,218 km) – something a four-wheeled Mustang can only dream of.

What we have here today is a North American TF51D Mustang – one that has been restored twice already. The first time was in 1989 by Fighter Rebuilders and the second in 2018 when Airmotive Specialties took care of the overhaul. It is up for sale now, and you will notice this version is a little different.

The TF51D – Twin Mustang – were used for pilot-training purposes up until the T-33 Shooting Star jet-fighter era aircraft took over the duties. The unit for sale has just 2,841 total airframe hours – 1,841 of them since the restoration and it also comes with a zero-hours spare engine.