When the Failsworth yard existed some of the Firefly engines were extracted to aid the restoration of another type ……yes you have guessed it – Spitfire! Had the yard been full of Spitfires then I expect all the airframes would have been recovered for return to flight. Here is an extract from a 2004 thread about that yard in which the engine deal done with the yard owner was mentioned. The removal of the Fireflies’ power plants can’t have helped their attraction as possible projects in their own right.

“I fronted a group purchase of about six Griffon 74’s still attached and cowled to Fireflies. She was just ‘impossible’ to deal with at a business level. She was paranoid that she was being cheated. The going rate for the parts would be agreed then it would double the next day and then it would double again the day after that. She was three times more expensive than Marine Salvage at Portsmouth, noted Griffon and Merlin engine dealers. They wern’t Spitfire engines but they were a source of common parts. There was great risk of internal corrosion.She preferred to see everything go at scrap price than think that she had sold cheaply and others were going to profit by it. A very strange lady or maybe very very astute. The group including, Spencer Flack, bit the bullet, winced and paid. I have got some photographs somewhere taken July 1979
Mark”