Thursday, September 17, 2026

Julian Mitchell, from Kirtlington, has been restoring a 1941 Hawker Hurricane for the past six years in his driveway, it was on display at the We Have Ways Fest 2026.



Mitchell said he had been interested in rebuilding vintage aeroplanes for a long time, and described the restoration of the iconic single-seat fighter as his "dream project".

"It is purely a hobby and that's working on vintage aeroplanes and anything to do with military aviation history," he told the BBC.

"About six years ago I had the opportunity to purchase a Hurricane restoration project and been working on that ever since then really."

The Hurricane was responsible for 60% of German losses during the Battle of Britain, which took place in the skies over southern England in the summer of 1940.

Later in the global conflict, Hurricanes fought in the defence of Malta, aided the desert war in North Africa and led bombing raids against Imperial Japan - before being retired from service in 1947.

The aircraft Mitchell is restoring began its life in Canada, where it was constructed in 1941, before surviving the war with two Canadian squadrons.

"Following the war it was scrapped in 1945, ended up on a farmstead up in Toronto somewhere in Canada where it laid for the best part of 40 years before it was brought back over to this country in the late 1980s," Mitchell explained.

"It went through two or three hands where people decided they might have a go at rebuilding it and then it ended up with me."

After six years of restoration work, Mitchell said the Hurricane was "60%" finished.

"The airframe will be finished fairly soon but there's all the fitting out of the systems - there's hydraulic systems, pneumatic systems, coolant system, that all has got to go in yet."

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