What is the difference—beyond the obvious—between a WWII show plane and one that can actually fly? According to bidders at two recent Bonhams auctions, about a million dollars. Last September the British auction house sold a non-airworthy 1945 Supermarine Spitfire war bird for a record-setting $1.8 million. Then in April, at an auction hosted at the Royal Air Force Museum in Hedon, London, Bonhams bested its own record with the $2.8 million sale of a Spitfire that had been restored to airworthiness.

The British engineering conglomerate Vickers-Armstrong originally built this two-seat plane for the Royal Air Force in 1944, but after the unit was sold to the South African Air Force, it fell into anonymity. Following its discovery in the 1970s in a Cape Town scrap yard, the plane changed hands several times before its five-year restoration. It is the first of its kind to have been offered at public auction in more than two decades.

"It’s beautifully built," said the British financier and pilot who purchased the plane, in an interview with the Independent after the auction. "It’s British, and it should stay in Britain, and it should stay flying. Things like this are built to be used, and not to be a museum piece."