While drawing this World War II-era M-3 A1 light tank, I was approached by a guy who asked to look at the drawing, introduced himself as Matthew, and then told me that he was thinking of getting an M-3 A1, himself.
After the war, Matthew explained, surplus and obsolete matériel was demilitarized (guns cut in half, holes drilled into armor) and sold. Farmers bought tanks and transports and used them as tractors, essentially – swords into plowshares, indeed – and every now and then, Matthew said, you still find the occasional tank squirreled away in a barn somewhere.
Matthew has a friend in Houston who’s a Mercedes dealer with “more money than he knows what to do with,” and he’s got not only a fully operational tank – a $200 registration fee and background check make owning one perfectly legal – but also a large piece of land on which the tank can be operated. As in operated.
