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| Pantera Club of Northern California: Tank Tour |
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| Saturday, October 13th turned out to be a beautiful day for the PCNC tank tour. Hosted by the Fertittas, the event began with lunch in Palo Alto at one of several restaurants. The group consisted of about 45 club members and 12 Panteras (and Steve�s Mangusta). We met in the parking lot of the Town & Country shopping center, where our departure was delayed as we waited through more than 5 cycles of a traffic signal. The Pantera ahead of me, which will go uidentified |
| began to overheat. We toured uphill towards the Pony Tracks Ranch, and upon our arrival several other Panteras also appeared to dump excess coolant ! |
| We arrived at the maintenance depot to begin our tour. Our docent for the day was Roy Robertson. The Military Vehicle Technology Foundation started as a hobby for Jacques Littlefield, and now he and a large group of paid and volunteer workers oversee the largest private collection of historical military vehicles in the world. This collection spans from late WWI to the present, and includes U.S. and foreign combat vehicles including tanks, armored cars, artillery, radar systems, and mobile bridges. There is even a SCUD missile the only one in private hands ! Some of these pieces have been used in movies. |
| At the maintenance garage, ground up restoration work is meticulously preformed. Authenticity is critical, and equipment is fully functional when complete. In the background you can see just part of the library necessary for this task., the person in this image is a military historian who was VERY impressed with the work performed. You can see a WWII era German tank, and command car still receiving final touches. |
| Then we headed further uphill to the museum, a U-shaped series of garages, literally packed wall to wall with equipment. |
| In this image to the right, is our Docent in the black hat. |