RattlesnakeBob

I'd guess failing finding a specialist 'restoration' kind of apprenticeship (which I'm nor sure actually exists ?) ... a good old proper 'sheet metal / body workers/ panel beaters apprenticeship would be a very good starting point? ..(that's if they still exist too of course ?) and failing that..... a metal workers / sheet metal fabrication apprenticeship would be another good starting point because you'd get to learn how to cut / fold /fabricate/ form and then weld and rivet (in the various different ways ) that you'd find very handy if you ever started working on restorations ... or.......... you could maybe do a straight forward vehicle maintenance apprenticeship for all the engine /gearbox / brakes etc bits that you'd need to learn about?...... ( though I guess that may veer too much towards modern vehicles / systems these days????? ) then you could also add a vehicular paint sprayers apprenticeship to the list ??? failing all of that ?....start begging for a job at a restoration workshop that does any kind of restorations work (not necessarily military vehicles) sweeping up and making the tea and answering the phone and work your way up from there .and failing ALL of that ? just get a job doing the same in any local garage that works on older vehicles and start accumulating experience whilst you hunt for your dream job PS: I am assuming you're a young un? ....cos this could all take some time

Yep...I;d have to agree that's a pretty comprehensively smashed tank

I was part of a crew that was building blast proof concrete walls around the fuel pumping depots at Mildenhall in the winter of 1984/85 ........It was a grand place to be in those days .....It was just like little America with hundreds of awesome Yank cars and pick ups zooming about all over the place...there must have been thousands of servicemen stationed there and the local pubs around West Row Village even had $ / £ exchange rate signs up behind the bars ..... ...I was there in a B&B for about 3 months and loved it .....apart from how cold it was in Jan /Feb The wind came in like a razor sharp lance from the North Sea with very little between the airbase and the coast to slow it down ....Christamighty was it ever cold One day I was talking to a US Airforce fella who had just flown in from an airbase in Texas..........he was in a full zip up arctic 'over suite' and matching boots and he was bitterly cold and shivering dreadfully ..we got chatting and I asked him what he thought of the UK so far?....to which he replied " well....it seems a lovely place buddy ......but is it always so ******* cold here ?!?!?!?!?!?!?" It seems a real shame that it's closing ....are the RAF going to keep it open for anything or is that it ? Kaputt?

Oh sod that ... I got news for you ! .....the day I finally set off to buy me a Jeep? ...... ........you're coming with me

Jessie that article on how to tell the difference between various Jeeps is incredible.... thank you very much !

I guess that does appear to be a rather horrendous cobble up but !!!.. I'd still rather see her out and about and running and being used looking like that rather than engine less and rusting in the corner of a scrapyard somewhere I think it's great that so many have used ingenuity and have also been 'liberal' with their engine choice ....long may it continue ...at least you're getting them back out there and rolling

a grand project and one I somehow missed completey in the past years ........ A really cracking looking Sherman too . ..I'd love to think I could attempt such a project...... but the cold reality of the dedication required... plus the size and manner of the workshop facilities required.... then there's the kit and gear needed to undertake such work .. ...... then there's the not too small a matter of just how fat a wallet you'd need to buy her in the first place never mind how much you'd need to set about the renovation and also of finding all the bits makes me go all a quiver! Brings me to a random thought though ........I can appreciate from this thread and others like it that an enormous amount of work goes on behind the scenes to source all the bits needed...... regards the engines which I presume must be getting rarer and more expensives as each year goes by ????? I know some folk out there have taken this route when it comes to the whacking great big petrol engines fitted to most WW2 trucks so........(only asking not meaning to stir any feathers regarding 'authenticity' etc) Wouldn't it be easier to use something modern such as big Volvo or Scania truck engine or maybe a big agricultural tractor engine in place of an original Sherman lump ? I'd have thought it would be easy enough to connect up with the 'remote' gearbox in a Sherman just so long as you could get the 'lump' of the beast into the engine bay ? Fuel economy would be better with a big modern diesel (?)..... ..plus way more power maybe ??? ...........and a modern engine would be easier to maintain too??? So.. ... Tell me......is it just because of the 'authenticity' that not many folk seem to have gone down this route ? and once again ..a really seriously gorgeous Sherman absolutely loving the double 'duck bills'

Hells teeth !!!! what a haul !!!!! I'd be a quivering wreck if I found such a stash in Europe !.... I can imagine quietly mooching through such a shed with my heart beating as to what may be around the next corner ... Does anyone else recall ....a good few years ago amongst the military vehicle circles were rumours of a Monastery somewhere in France or Belgium or somewhere that allegedly had a Tiger or a Panther stashed in a barn on their grounds and were refusing anyone to see it .... When you see a shed stuffed with long forgotten goodies such as this one is?.... it's easy to imagine maybe that old story wasn't so far fetched

I've said it before but ...It'll wear saying again ..... That's a lovely car ...can I ask why does she have (seemingly?) very wide wheels and tyres ? are they a fitting used by the Army during the War ? North Africa perhaps? ..........they do look to me like desert tyres ?... anyways ! a very nice motor and surprised no-ones taken your arm off for her I would have thought that's a fair price for such a nice condition car and with history

cracking stuff there's a proper interesting one in amongst them of a Sherman fitted with a dozer blade and the locating arm on the one side is horrendously bent ! ....... must have been some serious pushing going on

not sure what it is but I'd like to have it

A truly incredible restoration, absolute dedication to perfection ..........nice new shed too by the way !

Yes I agree she looks a proper bruiser ...a very purposeful looking truck

cracking stuff grand to see they were recovered ..but I'd have thought their very limited traverse wouldn't have made them a lot of use as dug in pillbox though? maybe they were actually dug in as the story suggests as decoys?

Google 'Shumshu Island' and check out the 'images of' there is a heck of a lot of armour left lying about there ! Shame it's so far away

Mighty interesting ! any idea where ?

Lord knows what the Insurance premium is

I suggest having a mooch on the ol' WWW because downrating a truck can get complicated......there's bound to be some up to date requirements on downrating a vehicle? .. On some I bought and sold over the years it could be a relatively straightforward job.....like changing the bolt sizes and the number of them holding on the fifth wheel on a tractor unit but.....on a 8.5 tonne M.A.N. I had in the 1990s I would have had to change the wheel sizes and also the rear springs as well to get her down to 7.5 tonne so it wasn't worth the hassle ... I admit I don't have a clue what the modern regs are though so ....

Many years ago the engineering yard I worked in had a WW2 era David Brown ex-aircraft tractor as their yard 'dumper'... it looked a lot like a normal 1940s farm tractor except that it had full set of cast iron 'mudguards' on the back ...maybe nothing that weird about that you may say ? . except that the mudguards were at least an 1" thick and yes that tractor was mighty heavy too !

Looks great ! Should be a straightforward enough restoration ???

D'you mind me inquiring where your Pigs came from ? It's just that at one time Hursts Brothers Scrapyard up by Newbury had loads of them (and also Shorland Land Rovers and Ferrets and Chieftains and stacks of other stuff) and I wondered if they might have come from there seeing as it's not that far on across the country from you ?

Totally agree...only once ever bought one (a Landrover) without seeing it ....and although it was 'sort of' as the fella described it ?.....it pretty much sort of wasn't as well ..........there were loads of things that he had 'forgotten' to mention at all and when they were all added up ...if I'd bothered to go and see it I wouldn;t have bought it .but being a decent sort and abiding by eBay rules I did

Gloucestershire hey ? Which side of the river then ?

So.........er.... call me stupid or miserable or whatever but.... .........even if you had that sort of money lying around idle?.... ...would any of you seriously have paid 200,000 Euros for that wreck ?....that's almost £160,000 by my reckoning... with at the very least the same amount and a whole lot more again to be spent on it before it was ever even vaguely resembling a tank ... ......and yes I know some of you will say "but it'd be worth maybe £500,000 when it was done !" well maybe so but.... I can't imagine taking on such an smashed wreck is going to be in any way whatsoever an 'easy' nor really an enjoyable task? ...to say nothing of the stress and hassle and heartbreak of even attempting to find all the bits you'd need ?.......... .....never mind the horror of writing all the cheques and handing over extremely large wads of cash for rusty crusty knackered and decayed bits and pieces?...and that's if you were lucky enough to find them in the first place....probably from some chancer dealer who knew damn well how desperately you needed them and so fleeced you in some sort of order before he handed them over ????? ..... I dunno ...call me pessimistic too if you want to but.... I understand it's a properly historic vehicle but..... there are others in the world ( Golan Heights / various former Syrian and Iraqy military bases etc) that are in far more complete condition so.....if you had the kind of money that is gonna be needed to rebuild this one?....then why wouldn't you just head out to wherever you needed to go to buy one of the others and save yourself having heart failure on the way ? Am I getting the wrong end of the stick or what ????? :-)

I know we shouldn't automatically trust Wiki but........ Am I really to understand that the US government spent between $209,000 and over a $1,000,000 on building each vehicle ? and that they have STILL never been used in comabt due to concern over their reliability and 'battle worthiness' !?!?!?!?! are they flipping serious ????? all that money .... to come up with something that is (reading elsewhere on the WWW) ....nowhere near as good as a 70 year old WW2 Jeep ?????????????? It would seem about the only thing it can do that a Jeep can't is ...be controlled remotely ....now ....I do not make any claim to be a 'remote controlled expert' but......If any of you would like to give me your WW2 Jeep and $200,000????????? I'll lay money I could cob up a working remote controlled system on it within a month or so ... Mr US Government??? I hereby declare you precisely fit the well known description of " A fool and his money are easily separated " .