Great British Design Quest: Vote Spitfire.

You lot never cease to amaze me…

You had a Mark V with a tropical filter with ‘possibly’ an 8 and a 4 in the serial and you nail it on the head… simply outstanding work!

Tropicalised Spit VB, by the look of it. I can **just** discern an 8 and a 4 in the serial, possibly.

IWM negative ATP 74810F – “Spitfire Mark VB, AB344, on the ground at No. 6 Maintenance Unit, Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, fitted with a long-range 90-gallon ferry drop tank, with which it flew from HMS EAGLE to Malta on 7 March 1942. AB344 was destroyed during an air raid on Kalafrana on 18 April 1942.”

Aston Martin DB5 it is then, better than some ropey old Spitfire……

I agree Chris, I’d rather have a DB5 over an ropey old Triumph any day.

As it’s the Great British Design Quest, that rules out the DB5 which was Italian Designed, half of Concorde as that would be French, as was the Mini Skirt, Dr Martens were German designed and Grand Theft Auto was/is part American.

Tropicalised Spit VB, by the look of it. I can **just** discern an 8 and a 4 in the serial, possibly.

Its a intresting list, Pity not to see such things as the Mallard Steam train, Merlin engine,Hunter jet,Brunel’s Bridges or Tunnels The first railway system etc.
I wonder if Routemaster’s would be on the shortlist if not just retired from service, I’d argue they were a great design due to how long they lasted, And how well they served, No new bus will ever get the chance to serve so long.

If Britishness is about looking great then the, Spitfire, Concorde,E type Jag all look great but have there faults, Other designs like the www was taken over by the Americans who made it popular, Dyson cleaners are made abroad now,So they kind of not British anymore in my mind.

I voted for the Spitfire in the end after all its 70 this year and still looks great.

Possibly a Mark V with a tropical filter?

Have you seen the picture of the Spitfire they’re using on the BBC website?

What the heck is it?

You’d have to go a long way to find an uglier Spitfire if you tried, I was so shocked I voted for the Mini!

Its horses for courses I guess. The E type has its proponents, and whilst its true that I have never owned or driven one, despite being a Jaguar fan, there are many who continue to sing its praises to this day.

You probably had a ‘Friday afternoon’ car – very common in Coventry in those days!

Bruce

Ah! A ‘form over function’ argument?

I think design must encompass efficient functioning in its designed role, and whilst it was about 1961 when the E-type was launched and about 1972 before I owned one (1965 4.2 roadster with the faired headlights still) it was a truly miserable driving experience.

Moggy

Oh yes – the Spitfire and the E type share many similarities – both have a huge aura around them primarily gained from the way they look. Neither were perfect – in its later variants, the Spitfire was a shadow of its former self in terms of flying qualities. The Series 3 E type likewise.

By todays standards, the E-type is indeed a poor performer. By the standards of the day it fared rather better. As for being a development of the C and D type, maybe, but it was a road car, where the C and D were designed primarily for the track. It brought the looks an performance of these cars to the masses.

Anyway, as we are talking about ‘design’ here, not performance, in terms of pure aesthetics, the E type gets my vote 🙂

Bruce

Sorry,

Got to be the E type, though it was close.

Bruce

Spoken like a man who’s never owned one. Looked great, but total rubbish as a performance car.

Moggy

Perhaps the researchers at the Beeb know more than we think, they may for instance be thinking of a derivative of the swept wing bomber (b12/36)that was Mitchell’s last design ,with a top speed of 360 mph in 1936/7 they may well of thought it must have been jet powered! as for the E type its derivative of the D type likewise the db5 (db4) and according to “Top Gear the” Delorean was styled by Ital in Italy ; wasn’t the inventor of the “DM” German (martens)? Reluctantly I voted for the Spitfire as it was the only revolutionary British design.

[QUOTE=Firebird]Blimey….what a pathetic choice of subjects…… :rolleyes:

How can you have a choice of design icons that don’t include a single design of Brunnel’s.
QUOTE]

Because the boundary is from the 1920’s to 1990’s!!!

Worse! No DeLorean!

wot, no Vincent motorcycles!!! 😀 I voted for the DM’s…

Neil

Blimey….what a pathetic choice of subjects…… :rolleyes:

How can you have a choice of design icons that don’t include a single design of Brunnel’s.

And as for Verdana text font being a design icon……WHAT 😮

Sorry,

Got to be the E type, though it was close.

Bruce

It was a tough choice between the Spitfire, Concorde and the E type.

Or, has some recently declassified MoD document just been uncovered by the BBC 😉

40,000 Spitfires – so thats why we won the BoB, and all along the story of our boys being outnumbered 4 to 1 was just to hide the efficiency of our weapons production, and designed to make it look like it was a close run thing! 😀

Supermarine were commissioned to build a jet designed by RJM…. 😀 😀

Are we suffering a bout of BBC revisionism, or just poor research and proof reading. 😮

Can’t wait to see the TV programs, just think of the room for errors there…. :diablo:

Four engined Spitfires off to bomb Europe… 😀
The famous Supermarine Meteor fighter… 😀
Film of the first flight of the Spitfire at Brooklands… 😀

Paul F

The commission was given to Supermarine Aviation Works, a racing seaplane manufacturer in Southampton, for a jet developed by its Staffordshire-born designer Reginald Mitchell (1895-1937).

Hmmm, the BBC are putting a lot of effort into their research these days…