Thanks for that Mark I knew the project had started with very little if anything remaining of the original aircraft. I wonder at which point it would be considered a new build?

The debate on what is a restoration and what is a new build will go forever I’m afraid,
I find in pretty hard to justify calling a data plate build an original aircraft restoration considering nothing on the aircraft is original Spitfire . To me that is a replica/new build .
The VWC Y2K Spitfire can hardly be called original . Are they even using the original firewall?
At most this aircraft , somewhat like a few other flying Spits is basically new build with a vintage data plate attached
Attaching an original data plate to an entirely new airframe hardly makes it that aircraft let alone an original Spitfire
There lies the crux of the debate .
Either way a new build Spitfire is still a thing of beauty and better than none at all .
However,
if I was the one forking over 3 million , I would sure want it to be an aircraft that was fairly original not one that had nothing but an original data plate attached