Ideally you wait for a large Soviet empire to collapse and buy it on the cheap when it sells all it's old mothballed but fully functional tanks held in reserve. The tank was in good condition when it came over to UK, bought for £400 in 1992. Was built in the late 40s I think - no idea if it fought in WWII or not, but I'm guessing not as it's a variant of the T34 that wasn't built till at least 1944.robbo86 wrote:You have a t34....... That is f*****g awesome....... make an interesting conversation piece certainly., where the hell does one go about getting t34 anyway???
It was disarmed when it came over - by sticking a block of wood down the barrel - to rearm it.... take the block out. But Morrissons is out of 50 yr old Russian shells...
My dad's friend who's well into his tanks bought it, but he lived in a council house and I'm not sure they were very chuffed with the idea of it being on the drive, so he asked my dad if he could leave it at the farm for 6 weeks before he moved it to restore it fully - 16 years later... rusted as hell now, still starts with outside power and a lot of easy start (it's so so so so loud - 16 or 32l engine? - can't remember), but had no work done on it apart from us painting it every so often. Can still turn the turret and aim the gun manually (back up system in case tank lost electrical power) had a fun couple of times scaring approaching cars when I was a kid and people weren't used to it being there so it was a surprise for them.
Fond of it, but doubt it will ever get this restoration - haven't seen my dad's mate in 10 years or so...
well done getting it back. 
I am biased in that department though 