Hehe, Guppy. I know. I pretty much figured you would spot this one as well and point it out
But honestly, those Merlin 66's and 70's with +25 had some very nice performance. I do not have data on the clipped ones and cropped ones, but I imagine that the top speeds would be more, especially down low, and the roll rate very comfortable. Climb would suffer, but hey, - the climb is 4000 fpm from the deck to 20K on average anyway, so there is something to play with.
Top speed at preferred alt goes as high as 415 mph I belive, so after clipping, well.....?
Did they clip the VIII? I recall there being a discussion about extended wings, but am not so sure of it anyway.