$12 million? 500,000 man hours? That’s 57 man years ... gulp.

From the “before” photos, I am guessing that this came from Walter Soplata’s (cough) collection. Anyone know for sure?

There was just one fuselage from Soplata.
They retrieved wrecks from Alaska.
That is what they started with.

That works out to $24 per hour but probably more like $15-$20 per hour when you take parts out of the $12mil. Go find another A&P who works for $20 per hour.

Wow! $12M and 500k hours is about $24/hr and that is not taking into account the acquisition costs and the fixed costs outside of labor. Those engines can easily reach eye watering amounts at overhaul.

So, as with any plane someone improves, he's not making a profit! It's a labor of love.

Doug, where did the 500,000 man hours figure come from?

From the XP82 website:

On 31 December 2018, our XP-82 Twin Mustang flew for the first time since 14 December 1949.

This wonderful test flight came after a 10.5 year restoration encompassing 207,000 labor hours

207,000 hours works out to 9 people working full-time for 10.5 years. Quite a labor of love.

$10M/207k hrs = approx $48/hr. That's if they only spent $2 million on parts, hangar, insurance, etc. They must've used a lot of volunteer labor. Even at that, it begins to look like they're losing money at $12 million.

If I were a guy with a $100M warbird "museum," I'd be calling about this.

Doug, where did the 500,000 man hours figure come from?

Labors of love often turn out to be financial boondoggles. I hope he does well with it, but at this price it would set a new high water mark that's *WAY* above the current one. But I also bet Kermit Weeks has inquired about it.

Unfortunately, as many entrepreneurs, artists, and craftsman have learned, the market often will not bear a price that includes a fair value for the labor and materials.

This is not a market. A market is large numbers of buyers and sellers, all of whom have alternatives.

So the reason behind it was additional fuel for long distances?
It carried a bunch of fuel?

Whatever the reason, a P-38 makes more sense to me.

I suspect that if a P-38 had been capable of doing the mission, they would have used it instead of bothering to go to the trouble of developing a new plane.

The P-82 had 70% more range than the P-38.