About 5 or six years ago a company I worked for was buying some simulators and we got the cook's tour from Rudy. The spit fuselage was quite dusty in the condition that it is in now but in a side room. They had finished all of the structural work on it and stopped. I asked Rudy if he was going to finish it. Rudy said "I don't have enough energy or money in me to finish a second Spit". He said that "when you get the airframe structural work done you are about 30% complete..." He asked me if I "wanna buy a Spit project?". Yipes! He was working on getting the FW-190 project lined up at that time and was looking forward to something different.
They had finished the Italian bird just before we visited so it was around that timeframe.
_________________
Bill Goebel
aka TPFD
Vintage Aircraft Services
Aircraft restoration and rebuilding
Rhome, TX
http://www.vintageaircraftservices.net