College student builds 1/2 scale tank, drives it on street

Once upon a time in Britain, an audacious individual decided to open negotiations for the purchase of a Challenger tank to defend his house and garden against invaders. After notifying Mrs. Thatcher (Britain's PM at the time) and Mr Andropov of the Soviet Union, he started to consider conventional defence of his home.

He decided to write the government with a request to purchase a Challenger tank, suggesting that a purplish colour would blend in with the flowers of his garden. They wrote back, saying "colour is of course customer choice" and that his new tank would cost "in the order of 1.5 million pounds".

Being unable to raise 1.5 million pounds, W Morgan Petty was unable to ever purchase his tank, but perhaps he should have considered this chap's idea, and simply build one.

This clever fellow enlisted the help of his fraternity (who I suspect wanted his tank's support in upcoming paintball games) to construct the vehicle, based on a Bobcat front loader chassis.

He took it on the road a few times and the police have pulled him over, more to get a closer look than to enforce the law against tanks on the road.

(For the Challenger story, see The Defence Diaries of W Morgan Petty, which is unfortunately out of print.

Filed under: tank, weapon, and model