55 Spitfires and 13 Hurricanes are in airworthy condition. By contrast, there are over 150 P-51 Mustangs still in the air, and several dozen others in various stages of restoration.
-ccm
A prime reason for the P-51s is that they stayed in use to the Korean War and then became the mainstay of the air-racers. Of course the modifications as air-racers can render some barely recognizable as being derived from the P-51. If Britain hadn't had such a depressed economy post-war, maybe more Spitfires would have been saved but I don't think that the Spitfires were competitive as air-racers even so, the 5+ year difference in basic design just shut the Spit down and of course the Hurricane was even older.
55 Spitfires and 13 Hurricanes are in airworthy condition. By contrast, there are over 150 P-51 Mustangs still in the air, and several dozen others in various stages of restoration.
-ccm
And a lot of those Spitfires were resurrected in the 80’s. I saw a bunch being restored at the Imperial War Museum shop in Duxford.
Someone had the great idea to collect up a lot of the Spitfire “gate guards” around the UK before they rotted away for ever. They were replaced by full size fiberglass replicas and the gate guards restored to flying condition.