What was White Lightnin'?

When the war ended, most of the Lightnings remaining on US continental territory were put up for sale at $1,200 apiece, and the rest were scrapped. P-38s were popular competitors in the air races from 1946 to 1949, with brightly colored aircraft racing at full speed around the pylons at Reno and Cleveland.

Lefty Gardner, a former B-24 and B-17 pilot linked to the Confederate Air Force, bought a mid-1944 P-38L-1-LO that had been converted into an F-5G, one of the Lightning's reconnaissance versions. He painted it white with red and blue trim and named it White Lightnin'. He also reworked its turbo-supercharging systems and intercoolers to achieve the best low-altitude performance, and fitted P-38F-style air intakes to improve its aerodynamics.

White Lightnin' was severely damaged in a forced landing following an engine fire during a ferry flight. The company that owns Red Bull bought it and restored it with a bright polished aluminum finish. Its base version, the P-38L, had been the most numerous Lightning variant, with 3,923 units, and the first fitted with zero-length rocket launchers; it entered USAAF service in June 1944, in time to support the Allied invasion of France on D-Day.

Gardner was not alone: Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier also bought a Lightning, a P-38J that he painted red so it would stand out as a racing and aerobatic aircraft. Among the most celebrated survivors is Glacier Girl, the oldest-built surviving P-38, recovered from the Greenland ice in 1992.