Just popping out to put some fuel in the TANK
Meet the Dublin collector who buys, restores – and regularly drives – his f leet of military vehicles... and they’re cheaper to run than a modern car
TAXING and insuring an armoured vehicle costs a fraction of the price of putting a modern car on the road.
But while doing the school run in a World War II tank isn’t really an option for most families, they can be a great source of joy for enthusiasts, according to one of Ireland’s leading military vehicle collectors.
Kieran Flynn, who is events executive with the Irish Military Vehicle Group (IMVG) based in Newbridge, Co. Kildare, personally owns over 25 of the group’s 35-odd vehicle collection.
Mr Flynn said there is ‘no problem at all’ getting older vehicles insured under special ‘classic vehicle’ insurance.
He told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘Anything over 20 years old, there’s no problem,’ he said. ‘It’s about €170 for a Jeep or a Land Rover and €240 for a truck.’
But he said he has been quoted close to €1,000 for a similar style vehicle that is just 15 years old – and said the tax was ‘horrendous as well’ on newer machines.
‘The old vehicles are €56 to tax, but the catch is they’re not commercial vehicles so they can’t be used for hire or reward.’
And there’s a catch on the insurance side as well for anyone thinking of trading in their Punto for a Panzer – mileage is restricted to a few thousand kilometres a year and the vehicles should only be used for shows and displays.
Mr Flynn, a retired woodwork and construction studies teacher who was in the army reserves for 43 years, said the older machines rarely give trouble as there are few or no electronic components.
‘Anything we have with technology gives us hardship,’ the Dublin man said. ‘We have two ‘04 Land Rover ambulances that came from Chad with small mileage and one of them has our hearts broken [with persistent breakdowns].
‘But the old stuff, the old 1942 Dodge ambulance, for example, once the battery’s charged and there’s fresh petrol in it, she’ll start and run.
‘And the Thunderbird 1 [an ACMAT ‘gunship’ truck] goes everywhere. I’ve put 37,000 kilometres on that since 2006 and it has only broken down once.’
Mr Flynn said the ‘more mechanical’ older vehicles are driven ‘by sound’.
‘You listen, because if something’s going to break, it will change tune just before it does.’
The 60-strong IMVG, made up mainly of ex-Defence Forces personnel, has three qualified mechanics among plenty of amateur ones.
A ‘nucleus’ of around 15 members meet at the yard – where the vehicles are usually kept – every Sunday, where most necessary maintenance work is carried out.
Bigger vehicles are sometimes sent out to a garage for checks and repairs.
‘It’s a men’s shed, but there’s women involved and younger people as well,’ Mr Flynn said.
The ex-military police reserve conceded the vehicles are saved from too much wear and tear by the fact that they ‘don’t get much running’ and are ‘driven sympathetically’.
But when they do break down, spare parts are not as hard to come by as you might expect.
Many of the vehicles belonging to the IMVG and its members were donated by the Irish Defence Forces. Others were bought at military auctions.
The IMVG, celebrating its 20th birthday next year, is now ‘well established’ with the Irish army, making it easier to get deactivated vehicles with each passing year.
‘At the very beginning, the amount of paperwork was unnatural,
‘The older machines rarely give trouble’
but now it has become much simpler because they know who we are and we’re trusted,’ Mr Flynn said. ‘We can go into any barracks in the country with [deactivated] weapons and vehicles without any question, which is great.’
The military enthusiasts and their vehicles will often be invited to veterans days at barracks around the country as well as other shows here and in the UK.
And their annual Military Show is happening for the 16th time this June, with live history displays, military re-enactment groups and militaria traders.
The ‘majority’ of the group’s vehicles were used by the UN, so they are ‘peacekeeping vehicles – not warmongering vehicles’.
Some of the fleet – which also includes Daimler FV701 Ferrets, Panhard AML 60s and 90s, motorcycles and an ACMAT crane – has popped up on film and TV over the years as props, including in RTÉ’s Ultimate Hell Week.
‘The army know us and we’re trusted’