Which P-38 did Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier buy after the war?

When the Second World 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; those in distant theaters were bulldozed into piles and abandoned. Between 1946 and 1949, P-38s were popular competitors in the Reno and Cleveland air races. Tony LeVier was one of the buyers: he chose a P-38J and painted it red so it would stand out as a racing and aerobatic aircraft.

LeVier knew the aircraft inside out. Together with other Lockheed test pilots, such as Milo Burcham and Jimmie Mattern, he gave remarkable demonstrations, including slow rolls at treetop height with a feathered propeller, to dispel the myth that the P-38 was unmanageable. In March 1944, during a four-month tour of P-38 bases to boost morale, he flew a new Lightning named Snafuperman, modified to full P-38J-25-LO specification at Lockheed's modification center near Belfast, and performed maneuvers that the 8th Air Force's common wisdom considered suicidal.

The P-38J-25-LO block, the one LeVier displayed in Europe, added electrically operated dive-recovery flaps and hydraulically boosted ailerons, one of the first such systems fitted to a fighter, which greatly improved its roll rate.

Others followed the same path. Lefty Gardner, a former B-24 and B-17 pilot, bought a P-38L-1-LO converted into an F-5G, painted it white with red and blue trim and named it White Lightnin'. Years earlier, LeVier, as Lockheed's chief test pilot, had angrily called the crash that destroyed the XP-38 prototype an unnecessary publicity stunt.