4 ms·

The Man Who Loved Tanks

11 points by peter123 18y ago

russell 18y ago
I was at his place for a fund raiser a while back. It is a truly awesome place, hundreds of tanks in huge metal buildings around a courtyard. My favorite was a scud missile launcher complete with scud from Yugoslavia (not Iraq). You would expect that a missile would be bright and shiny, like a new car, but no, this thing looked it had been beaten with sledge hammers. I am not sure whether it was the assembly process or whether it had just had a hard life.
ctingom 18y ago
Ok, now that's what you call a hobby!
dpifke 18y ago
I've seen his collection on TV a few times. They used two of his tanks in an episode of Mythbusters, and the restoration of the Panzer tank mentioned in the above article was chronicled on a program called "Tank Overhaul": http://military.discovery.com/convergence/tank-overhaul/episode/episode.html http://military.discovery.com/convergence/tank-overhaul/epis... His family has my condolences. Hopefully they'll now find a way to open his collection to the public.
mynameishere 18y ago
Never got the chance to die in one. You better believe that's what he was thinking about the whole time. Who wouldn't?
- eru 18y ago
  Why should he want to die in a tank?
  - mynameishere 18y ago
    It's better than cancer. Lots of people through history have wanted to die in battle.
    - eru 18y ago
      Perhaps. Though the article states that he was not a fan of war.
andreyf 18y ago
I'm always amazed by people who can go to school for ~16 years, work for five years, and then spend the rest of their lives to "managing investments", sitting on various boards, and collecting tanks. sigh wish I could do that...
vaksel 18y ago
that sucks, I saw a special about him on CNBC and he seemed like a nice guy. + he was an actual gear head and knew how to work on his stuff + drove it...instead of being one of those collectors who goes to an auction and buys a completed project that someone else poured thousands of hours into
tlb 18y ago
It was an amazing collection, and he had a team of people who really understood those machines. My favorite was a Russian radar system with giant water-cooled vacuum tubes that emitted radar pulses at some absurdly high power. That or the mobile bridge.

11 points by peter123 18y ago

I was at his place for a fund raiser a while back. It is a truly awesome place, hundreds of tanks in huge metal buildings around a courtyard. My favorite was a scud missile launcher complete with scud from Yugoslavia (not Iraq). You would expect that a missile would be bright and shiny, like a new car, but no, this thing looked it had been beaten with sledge hammers. I am not sure whether it was the assembly process or whether it had just had a hard life.

ctingom 18y ago

Ok, now that's what you call a hobby!

dpifke 18y ago

I've seen his collection on TV a few times. They used two of his tanks in an episode of Mythbusters, and the restoration of the Panzer tank mentioned in the above article was chronicled on a program called "Tank Overhaul": http://military.discovery.com/convergence/tank-overhaul/episode/episode.html http://military.discovery.com/convergence/tank-overhaul/epis... His family has my condolences. Hopefully they'll now find a way to open his collection to the public.

mynameishere 18y ago

Never got the chance to die in one. You better believe that's what he was thinking about the whole time. Who wouldn't?

eru 18y ago
Why should he want to die in a tank?
- mynameishere 18y ago
  It's better than cancer. Lots of people through history have wanted to die in battle.
  - eru 18y ago
    Perhaps. Though the article states that he was not a fan of war.

andreyf 18y ago

I'm always amazed by people who can go to school for ~16 years, work for five years, and then spend the rest of their lives to "managing investments", sitting on various boards, and collecting tanks. sigh wish I could do that...

vaksel 18y ago

that sucks, I saw a special about him on CNBC and he seemed like a nice guy. + he was an actual gear head and knew how to work on his stuff + drove it...instead of being one of those collectors who goes to an auction and buys a completed project that someone else poured thousands of hours into

tlb 18y ago

It was an amazing collection, and he had a team of people who really understood those machines. My favorite was a Russian radar system with giant water-cooled vacuum tubes that emitted radar pulses at some absurdly high power. That or the mobile bridge.