Text is by Soukoudragon, I hope he doesn’t mind I borrowed it, but this is too good not to share :)
Japanese man, a father and a husband hand built a 1/2.4 scale drivable tank to the details is featured on a TV program. Everything from the treads and gears to the outside armor. He started working on it 10 years ago (since the show aired). He loved tanks ever since he was a child. It was his dream to build his own tank. So as his hobby, he has been working on it. At first as just small pieces inside the house but later outside as it come together. People in the neighborhood always wondered what he was working on in the driveway. His mother and wife kept saying that they want him to quit. The tank is a Panzer IIIF.
The mini-panzer III ended up costing about 2,000,000 yen which is almost 20,000 US dollars. The point of being on the TV show is to decide whether or not he should give up his tank building hobby or not. The man mentions the idea of building a second tank and is in fact secretly already in the early stages of making a real full size second tank. A deal is made if the father can drive his tank in a open area, he’ll give up the tank building. So they transport the tank to a survival test drive location (an airsoft gun location). During the drive, the tank breaks down. At the end, they say the break down was probably due to over heating in the engine but the tank was brought back home safely. So will he give it up? He says that many improvements still remain, lol. So he doesn’t want to give it up. Show ends with the speaker saying that somebody offered to buy the tank for 2,500,000 (25,000US$) for a positive net of 500,000 (5,000US$) and the wife who has been so reserved got all excited :)
The video starts at 0:00 but the tank drive at the survival location starts at around 8:35 if you want to see the tank quickly. But I recommend going through the whole video.
“But I recommend going through the whole video.”
Because I speak Japanese fluently ….
Thankfully i’m half Japanese and can understand Japanese fluently…
I don’t understand Japanese but I liked seeing how Japanese TV shows look like and the tank is just wonderful! ^__^
make me marry his doughter and ill help him out :D
No way, I’m marrying that asian ass first !
ok i like milfs i can take his wife, she is useless if hes making tanks :D
Built a German tank…engine stalls a lot. Seems historical except that it did not start to burn. XD
Nonetheless a epic dedicated undertaking.
AN epic*
If you want to shitpost , learn to write properly first.
Oh and btw, Panzer III was very reliable machine for its time, shitty propulsion was a problem with much heavier later german tanks.
How is this shitposting, loser?
Why don’t you go back to /b/ and spam your secret club memes there?
maybe he should built a panther.
doesn’t need an engine, just put some combustible stuff on the back
historical enough
I not suprise that the tank’s engine did fail. But I admire the man. He did such a great job and shame for the wife for not support her husband.
I admire him too but I understand his wife, If he spends all his time on his hobby, no wonder his wife is against it, you marry another person to spend time with her too. If he neglects his family I’m more surprised they didn’t left him.
Yeah, maybe you right :|
“… didn’t LEAVE him” If you’re going to be grammar nazi, better make sure your own grammar is right too lol
Agree with your post here though. I have a load of bonsai on my balcony, takes every day caring, can’t just leave for vacation just like that. If I’d get married, I probably would end up selling my trees. That’d be a conscious choice though, for the exact reason you mentioned.
At least there are subtitles but im not sure if the subtitles are correct.
“His mother and wife kept saying that they want him to quit.”
“Show ends with the speaker saying that somebody offered to buy the tank for 2,500,000 (25,000US$) for a positive net of 500,000 (5,000US$) and the wife who has been so reserved got all excited :)”
Bitches, eh?
i doubt that the man would sell that minitank
Are there answers to these questions:
Did he make the motor and transmission all by himself? And is it fully historical?
How much does the tank weights?
Andrei Reelyo, everything about the mini-tank was hand made from scratch by him alone. He said it is his one and only hobby. As for fully historical or not, they made it sound as if even the parts inside are historical but except in scale. But I too have to question some of the insides just simply for practical reasons. The weight was never said.
What the fuck is up with the japanese and forum weaboos with nazi tanks? Of all the tanks he could have built it HAD to be one used by the nazi army, huh.
Take a wild guess which nation Japan was allied with in WW2. Also Nazi stuff does look pretty cool, and their uniforms were designed by Hugo fucking Boss, you can’t beat the Nazi’s at style or evil.
what the fuck is wrong with YOU?! why shouldnt he make a german tank? its GERMAN not “NAZI”, moron.
german tanks have had the best look, so deal with it :P :)
SS, there is guy on YT who makes also “mini-tanks” you can find him under name Tankman101, i recomend you to check his chanell. He has made M4 sherman and M60 Patton.
Wow, I admire this man who likes tanks and build one for himself. I want to build a full size tank but I don’t have money to build one. The tank that I want to build is E-50 series, although the tank existed only in blueprints. :)
Thats why its good to try to build a tank from blueprints because nobody cant say “thats wrong”. Im now building E 50 in 1:16 scale RC.I’m nearly done but everybody who i ask says that its stupid idea to start making tank which didnt exist and i always say: someone have to do it and if no germans in 1:1 then me in 1:16 :D
The best thing I have ever seen. Period.
SS, I do not mind at all. Was happy to see it appear on FTR :)
Thank you for this nice article, and SilentStalker for publishing it on FTR. I enjoyed watching that video. :)