This is the FV3805, a british artillery design developed from 1956 to 1960 when it was discontinued. The first prototype was built in 1957 and it was built on the Centurion hull, the gun equiped was the BL 5.5″ Mk 3 gun which was facing over the engine. The development was cancelled in favour of the Abbot project. Only 2 prototypes were ever built. They never saw action.

So it was therefore transformed into an artillery observation vehicle as you can see in this picture where the gun has been removed.

The front without the gun

The tank’s booty Now you must be thinking: That’s all fine and dandy, but why is your nickname FV3805Restoration? You know how I said there were 2 prototypes built?

Well, one was found rusting behind the Wight Military and Heritage Museum on the Isle of Wight in England. The other prototype? God knows where it is.

Now you must be thinking why you should care about it, I mean it’s only a prototype. What’s special about this vehicle is that it’s one of the rare tanks that are big enough to install an electric ramp, so that disabled veterans are able to get into the tank. So it was decided to restore the vehicle for Tankfest 2017 at the Bovington Tank Museum, where it will be driven by an all-female crew.

But to restore a tank, you need money. And a lot of it. That’s why a kickstarter page was created. You can find it at this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1013126295/fv3805-restoration-project?ref=card A pledge would be highly appreciated, even the smallest pledges count.

Now let’s talk about what’s to be restored. First of all, you can see the tank is completely rusted, so it will be scraped and repainted. The second thing you might have noticed is the severe lack of a gun, but that will be taken care of by 3D printing a 5.5″ howitzer. And of course an electric ramp will have to be installed as well.

Now to the engine. It doesn’t work. Ist kaput. So an entirely new engine will have to be installed. So you know. If you’ve got a Rolls Royce Meteor Mk IV engine just lying around…