Once upon a time, someone tried to set a record by driving a tank up Pikes Peak

[Justin]

https://gazette.com/life/years-ago-a...cdec30b0e.html

?I know we can climb it. Given time, the tank could go to the top of the world.?Cpl. Howard Brewer wasn?t simply being macho. After a reconnaissance ride April 11, 1919, Brewer was sure his 14-ton Whippet tank could climb to the 14,115-foot summit of Pikes Peak. Another member of the team, Sgt. A.H. Worrell, told The Gazette that he had ?driven tanks over trees and trenches on the western front and I am betting we get to the top.?

The mountain-climbing mission came at the nexus of money and morale ? the U.S. Treasury Secretary was to announce a final ?Victory Liberty? loan drive, starting April 21, to get Americans to buy $4.5 billion of government bonds to close out the country?s final bills from World War I.

[Justin]

So, who here knows someone with a privately owned tank?

I have an idea.

[Drucker]

Does a 75 Ford LTD count?

[Justin]

No.

[BushMasterBoy]

Abrams tank weighs 70 tons. I'm not sure the road could safely handle that. Still wrecked cars up there from long ago.

[ray1970]

From the article:

?The rest of the war was financed through taxes, an impressive accomplishment of fiscal discipline and patriotic support.?

Well, at least we still have taxes.

[Justin]

Abrams tank weighs 70 tons. I'm not sure the road could safely handle that. Still wrecked cars up there from long ago.

Yeah, an Abrams would be a challenge. I'm thinking something smaller like a Sherman would fit the bill.

[Gman]

From the article:

?The rest of the war was financed through taxes, an impressive accomplishment of fiscal discipline and patriotic support.?

Well, at least we still have taxes.

...or maybe the war isn't over.

[Singlestack]

So, who here knows someone with a privately owned tank?

I have an idea.

About 20 years ago I was very close to buying a tank. The cheap route would have been a Polish surplus T-55 and the nice route would have been a swiss surplus Centurion Mk III or Chieftain. The centurion was the far better vehicle, and nobody takes better care of surplus vehicles than the swiss. The RAC museum at Camp Bovington in the UK was going to make the arrangements and they do that all the time for private buyers.

The reality of owning a 30+ ton tank is they are actually fairly fragile, need many hours of maintenance compared to running hours, and in many cases you need another of them to recover it if/when it breaks down. The cranes, tools, etc are expensive along with spare parts. While I could have made the cost of buying one work, the "other costs" talked me out of it.

[earplug]

Only the government would borrow money to finance war debit and call it paid off. It was a French tank.
The citizens were fooled. Nothing has changed.