I saw this beast on eBay, and as I have a huge interest in the aircraft used in the making of Battle of Britain, it had to be bought!!
The Buchon is, of course, the Spanish-built, Merlin-engined version of the Bf109G-2. Over 170 of these aircraft were built, but only a couple of trainer versions. (Depending on your sources, it's either one built, or one built and one converted from another variant.)
The sole surviving example was, of course, used in the filming of Battle of Britain (along with my other subject, Spitfire Tr.9 MJ772). She served as both a trainer, converting the film company's group of pilots to the type, and also as a camera platform for the flying sequences. Indeed, while little of the footage shot from the M4L made it into the final cut, much of it has been reused over the years in other films and documentaries, including a couple of brief shots in the film Dark Blue World. Unlike the Spitfire, however, which could be flown with little difficulty from the back seat, I doubt that the Buchon was used in the same capacity, which was to shoot some of the pilots' POV shots, specifically in the dogfight scenes. I could be wrong!
At Duxford, with some of the other film "Messerschmitts":
This aircraft was one of the large number of Buchons (and a single-seat Spitfire) which eventually wound up with Wilson "Connie" Edwards at his facility in Big Springs, Texas, where it was stored for over forty years. Edwards eventually put his collection of film aircraft up for disposal, and they were all eventually sold - although were this particular airframe has ended up hasn't yet been confirmed.
When the aircraft was put up for sale - note the incorrect tail!
